Kerry’s finest take one for team
Several hours later they were again in action, this time on the same side as the Kerry footballers took on the Kerry hurlers in a ‘fight night’ fundraiser at the INEC in Killarney for their respective training schedules.
It was an eventful evening, very much enjoyed by the vocal and enthusiastic crowd of over 400. Powered by the multi-talented Boyle brothers of Ballyduff (hurling, football, soccer and now boxing, Liam ‘Buster’, Mikey ‘The Mauler’ and Pádraig ‘The Body-Snatcher’ excel at them all), anchored in the last fight of the night by Jason ‘Big Bang’ Casey of Ballyheigue, the hurlers took the bragging rights but the honours were very much even.
It takes great courage in the first instance to step into a boxing ring in front of a big crowd; it takes even more courage when you’re putting at risk a reputation already established in a different contact sport. Thus it was that even if James ‘Too Quick’ Walsh and Shane ‘The Scrapper’ Enright found themselves on the wrong end of the decision in their respective bouts, they enhanced their reputations, showed great heart in adversity.
On the night, however, no one stood taller than Seamus Moynihan. Long past his athletic prime, Seamus nevertheless stepped in with the formidable Liam Boyle and despite being outclassed by a man who would surely have made it in the ring had he put his mind to it, Seamus shipped and shook off every big punch, never stopped coming forward and was still there throwing punches at the final bell.
“This was my first time ever putting on a pair of boxing gloves and going into a ring,” a breathless Seamus explained immediately afterwards; “The first lesson I got was 20 minutes beforehand! But it was very enjoyable. A few times during the fight Liam was asking me if I was okay.”
Why does someone like Seamus Moynihan, a man with a national reputation as an outstanding footballer, put so much on the line like this? “I was on a hiding to nothing but it’s for Kerry. The boys asked me if I’d do this and I had no hesitation, though just before I went into the ring I was saying, ‘What the hell have I left myself in for here!’ But I wore the jersey for 16 years and if I can help out in any way to raise funds for the training fund, I will. Having said that, there’s a thin line between going mad and trying to give a good account of yourself.”
The pity, Moynihan added, was that there weren’t more of the current Kerry panel involved, especially the high-profile guys. “For this to work you need the likes of Aidan O’Mahony, Paul Galvin, Darren O’Sullivan competing, and maybe have a novelty fight like Bomber Liston against Mick Galwey — then you’d draw the crowds. Galvin against [Cork’s] Noel O’Leary would be a real crowd-pleaser!”
No sooner said than done — that’s exactly what’s now being planned for the end of this season, says county board chairman Patrick O’Sullivan.
“We’d never done anything like this before, it was a novelty for us, but hopefully now we can do it again and maybe get more of the footballers and the hurlers to commit to it.
“We need to raise money for team training and for the Centre of Excellence and we’re trying out different ideas.
“Traditionally our gates were our big fund-raisers, the championship especially, but in the last two years that’s down by 40%.
“Last year we had a loss of €150,000 and if our gates keep on falling we’re going to have to find different ways of raising funds.”
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