O’Rourke fills goalie gap but rules out Royal return

They may have dusted Graham Geraghty’s boots off last summer but Colm O’Rourke’s comeback won’t stretch any further than a one off club game.

The 54-year old Royal legend and respected TV pundit caused quite a stir when he returned to playing duty on Monday night in Meath.

He is involved as a selector with Simonstown Gaels’ junior C team who had only 13 players for a Division 3B league away fixture against St Ultan’s. Having made the journey it was decided to draft two selectors into action, O’Rourke, who played in goals, and Ollie Boland, who lined out at corner-forward.

But O’Rourke, father of Meath panellist Shane, won’t be repeating the outing.

“No, there’ll be no glorious comeback,” smiled Simonstown club secretary and former Meath county board official Barry Gorman.

“It was a bit of a novelty more than anything else. A lot of the lads had travelled a fair distance to get to the game and instead of telling them to turn around go home they stuck Colm in goals.

“He pulled off one great save in fairness to him. But he let two goals in and I’d imagine he took a bit of ribbing for that.”

O’Rourke is unlikely to put it up there with his All-Ireland winning heroics of 1987 and 1988 but the club did at least win their match 3-14 to 2-11.