USING THE HEAD

As Ireland take on the All Blacks, Donal Lenihan highlights the growing problem of concussion and the need to protect some players from themselves.

WHEN Donncha O’Callaghan and John Fogarty were in cahoots you knew there was trouble ahead. On one occasion the two famously got hold of a pantomime costume of a horse and were grazing on the famous Thomond Park sod when the rest of the Munster squad reported for training. Fogarty found himself at the rear end of that arrangement and recently has been down on his luck once more.

O’Callaghan’s practical jokes are legendary at this stage, but in those early days when everyone in the Munster squad was fair game, Fogarty was his chief lieutenant and more than willing to play along. A good-humoured, happy-go-lucky guy, the proud son of Tipperary went on to play professionally for Connacht, captain the Ireland A side, win a Heineken cup medal with Leinster and fulfill a lifetime ambition when he came on in the latter stages of Ireland’s test against New Zealand in New Plymouth last June to win his first cap. Things could not have been better, or so we thought.