Páidí takes it on the chin as Kerry supporter throws him a ‘haymaker’

EVERYTHING comes in threes, even body blows, as Kerry footballers found to their chagrin yesterday.

First came the defeat of the county’s minor team at the hands and feet of Laois. Then came the humiliation of the senior team, outplayed and outclassed by Tyrone. And then came the final slap in the face for Páidí Ó Sé, manager of the senior team.

With about 40 seconds to go to the final whistle in the All-Ireland championship semi-final game, a Kerry supporter, furious at the 13 to 6 drubbing meted out by Tyrone, threw a powerful punch at Páidí before ringside stewards intervened and led him away.

“I believe I got a haymaker towards the end of the game, but maybe through all my years in Croke Park I was entitled to it,” Páidí said in the wake of yesterday’s incident.

The colourful Kerry manager played down the assault, saying he is “certainly not going to be making an issue out of it”.

Photographer David Maher, who captured the altercation on camera, said the man with the strong right hook had appeared from nowhere. “I was waiting to take a celebration picture of Tyrone when I saw this guy walking towards Páidí. He was wearing a suit and was in his 50s. He looked like a Croke Park official.

“Páidí was unaware of his approach. As he came upon him, the supporter threw a punch and from where I was standing, it certainly looked like it connected. Páidí pulled away from him but it seemed like the man went in to swing again before the stewards arrived.

“Páidí pointed at the man and the stewards led him away,” said David, a photographer with Sportsfile agency.

A garda spokesman said they had no report of the incident.

If Páidí and Kerry supporters had little option but to take yesterday’s Croke Park hiding on the chin, there was at least one silver lining.

It came in the form of 27-year-old Gillian O’Sullivan, the Farranfore red head who walked her way into becoming only the third Irish athlete ever to take a medal at the world track and field championships. For her efforts in the 20km, she took silver in the Stade de France, behind European and Olympic champion Yelena Nikolayeva and became the first Irish athlete to win a medal at the championships since Sonia O’Sullivan’s Gothenberg gold in 1995. Cork woman Olive Loughnane came 12th, a career best.