'Sully' was more than just a flamboyant character

‘The Rock’ was more than just a flamboyant character

Apart from the flamboyance he had, he was a smashing hurler. He had great skills; he had a fantastic first touch. He was commanding around the square and generally kept his man quiet. I think his record up to ’07 would show that his man never really scored anything more than 2 points a game. I think he kept an awful lot of big name players quiet in big games and they never really scored against him.

Secondly, he was very flamboyant, the way he burst out of goal, taking two or three men with him. His catch in the ’04 or ’05 final, where he caught the ball, lost his hurley and had three Kilkenny fellas running after him and then blew them out of the way really typified ‘Sully’. He will always be remembered for that booming point against Limerick in 2001, from the other end of the field was some score. That really cemented his status as a real favourite with the crowd.    

Whilst he was struggling for form last year, he got it together for the semi-final against Kilkenny. He still, in his approach to games, got the crowd going. The Cork fans will miss that. But not just the Cork supporters; other fans will miss what he brought to the game, the flamboyance and the colour.

He was a jovial type of guy and he was very easy-going. He was a groomsman at my wedding, so we were quite friendly for a good couple of years. He was a real Messer a great character and he certainly would have loved the fact that he was known as ‘The Rock’ in Cork at the time. I think he was a big wrestling fan and ‘The Rock’ was a wrestling character so that was a big thrill for him. He would have thrived on it; he always thrived on the attention, so he was a really nice guy and we had great crack together.