Ronan O’Gara's tribute to Pat Geraghty: Going out with all guns blazing

An obituary to Pat Geraghty, Ex-Munster and Leinster Rugby media official. Geraghty had the trust of the entire Munster dressing room, writes Ronan O’Gara.

In a Harold’s Cross hospice last Friday morning, I sat at the foot of his bed, dusting down all the good old days with Pat Geraghty. I was doing a lot of the talking, all of it in fact, and for that alone, it was a unique conversation.

Fact was often stranger than fiction in those old Munster days. Once, the Munster players locked Geraghty in a cupboard at a Christmas night out in Langton’s in Kilkenny and threw it and him down the stairs. That signified Pat was a made man in Munster. That he was one of us. That he didn’t just have the trust of the dressing room. He was part of the dressing room. And he was fair game for the same merciless culture of banter and ridicule we all were. Sink or swim friend.