What’s easier, cricket or hurling?

ONLY a couple of months previous he was one of Ireland’s World Cup cricket heroes in the win over England, taking four wickets to limit the auld enemy to 327, before scoring the final runs to complete a record chase.

Now, on a sunny afternoon in his native Balrothery in north County Dublin, John Mooney was again in the crease. On this occasion a far more humble occasion, the Leinster League.

He’s a fixture here, part of the wider North County Cricket Club family, but in typical Irish fashion is also subject to the kind of banter that keeps a guy grounded. So it is that, even having hit a mighty 120 in his bat, he is slagged by Jerry, Tom and the lads as he heads for the pavilion stumped. A moment of lapsed concentration allowing an alert wicket-keeper take his scalp.