Ronan O'Gara: Briano and Tom left the Munster jersey in a better place

We lost two more men who lived the province's mantra this week.

IN HIS ELEMENT: Ireland u19 Head Coach Tom Tierney offers some encouragment before a game. Picture: INPHO/Bryan Keane

THEY’LL lay our former manager Brian O’Brien to his final rest on Friday in Limerick. He was a fine age, 83.

Tom Tierney wasn’t. Our careers intersected fleetingly but decisively in a sliding doors moment over twenty years ago. These are the odd irrelevancies you reflect on when a man is taken at 46, a few months older than myself, with a wonderful wife and two daughters.