British and Irish Lions of Remembrance: Rob Karney about giving up Gaelic football and playing the day when the future of the lion was at stake

Rob Kearney withdrew from Rugby in 2021 as one of the most disgusting players in Irish history, leaving sports after four titles six nations, four Cup champions triumphs and two tours as a British and Irish lion in 2009 and 2013.

For many, he best remembers her sensational appearances in Lions Colors against South Africa during the 2009-Turnery series when he really announced on the world stage, demonstrating almost unbridled ability under a high-back ball.

Coming from the Louth district on the eastern coast of Ireland, Karney’s magnificent air force came in a small part from the fact that rugby is far from the first love of his hometown, nor from the sport he played the most growing up. That is, rather, Gales football.

“I was from a relatively sports family, but I’m from Louth County who didn’t have much rugby. It was a real Gael football district,” says Kearney Sky Sports.

“I was lucky that two seasons were not too clashing or clashed and I could play many Gaelic football during the summer and rugby in winter.

“Rugbi was a real great love and although I always missed Gales football a huge amount, I am pleased with the route I chose.”

A bizarre seventh cousin of former US President Joe Biden, Kearney looks back at the Lions 2009 tour and reveals a third test against Springbox to avoid a serial bljubaz after two of the extremely narrow introductory defeats have taken far more than a rugby game.

It was the day when it comes to the future of the tour, and the players felt it.

“There was a strong pressure on the team, because suddenly there was not just the 2009 class,” Kearney says.

“We felt that we had real responsibility for the future of Lions jersey and what it means to people. It was a huge amount of conversation about that during the week.

“Ian Mcgeechan (Main Coach 2009), obviously the legend of lions so many years, was not shy to highlight it and put the right responsibility to us to perform and win.

“There were true questionnaires about the future of the lions and it was extremely difficult for us as players, because there were much more than 80 minutes of rugby on the line.

“The blind and the history of the lions, what they are committed to, what we wanted future generations to think of the lions was on the line of that day.”

Such a narrative was thrown out, then exploded into consciousness due to the defeat of the lion of the series, which was guaranteed to be extended when More Steyn landed a 54-meter sentence at a height in Pretoria, with the last shot of the second test to win South Africa 28-25.

The 2005 tour to Novi Zealand and the defeat of 3-0 under Clive Woodward proved the disaster, while in 2001 a tour in Australia under Graham Henry saw the lions reject the opportunity to win a 2-1 eventual loss.

The defeat in 2009 meant that the lions would be without winning the series since 1997 at the very least until 2013 – a tour in Australia, they will win 2-1.

For plenty of consecutive ivory from 3-0, there would be an unpleasant and potentially valuable end of the tour of the tour of the four nations.

“Fortunately, we set a really good performance and won incredibly well,” Kearney says, while the lions played angrily to secure a 28-9 win.

‘I was in a fantastic country: From the expectation to miss the testing of Lava Trtyscorer’

Earlier in 2009, Kearney was part of the Grand Slam with six peoples – the first for Ireland since 1948 – but he vividly remembers that he was just watching the announcement of Lions Squad, unusually suffering from the cases of mumps.

“I remember exactly where I was because at the time I was quite ill,” he says. “I didn’t play for Leinster for a few months and I was home.

“I was incredibly thrilled, but I had a stop, which was pretty serious and I wasn’t sure if I could start on a tour. From the place where I was that day to how the tour ended for me was very surprising.”

It is easy to forget that such Kearney’s possible impact would, but Wales’s Lee Byrne was established as the lions of the first choice, and the first struggled with the injury.

Byrne suffered a foot injury for 37 minutes in the opening of the dough in Durban and then a serious thumb fracture in training to completely exclude it.

Kearney stood out from the bench and started in another test where he switched to attempt in just the seventh minute.

“I was not disappointed because I knew that Lee Byrne was always in the driver’s seat to start my first test. I picked up a dead leg against the Western Province that left me out for a few weeks, so I was honest I was absolutely delighted to have been on the team.

“I didn’t expect it to be, because as a full back, it was unusual to pick up one of those positions on the bench.

“The second test was phenomenal and truly realized the dream. I thought I was living in a fantastic country, because eight days before I didn’t expect to go into the composition. And here I started, achieving an attempt to open.

“The whole game was a bit of a fantasy, because in your career there are days in which you are perfect and completely in your course. That it seems like everything you do. I was very fortunate to have had one of those days on the biggest stage for lions.”

Because of all that his performances were spectacularly good in South Africa that summer, the opening of two tests, however, brought two lions of defeats.

For the then, the 23-year-old proved to be massively conflicted.

“It really was. I did a Sky Sports The interview with Miles Harrison after that and he spoke everything about my performance, but the only thing I could have thought we lost the series and let her slide.

“I have been in some disappointed locker rooms over the years, but I will always remember that one of the truly absolutely cracked.

“It just shows that sport is the strongest and finest of margin, and that’s why we love the game so much. It was really unhappy because the decision would be very special.

“If I look at the lowest career periods, the second test of 2009 is up there.”

‘Injury before the 2013 tour was so stressful – she didn’t have the same sense of achievement’

Four years later, Kearney was from his back in 2012, in which he was named a European player of the year, but a lower leg injury just before the last club match of the season suddenly left her chances of a 2013 Lions in a really doubt.

After traveling to Hong Kong with lions, Kearney stayed in the hospital room after scanning that would determine if he could continue in Australia or not – a moment of immense anxiety.

“It was very stressful. Leinster had the Challenge Cup finals the day before we started and my knees just didn’t feel heated, so I had to get out.

“We traveled to Hong Kong to play Barbara there and I was so worried. The scanning not returned well, I would send to Dublin.

“Fortunately, the medical staff was happy that it would not be too long and I returned to the field two weeks later.

“Until that moment, Leigh Halfpenny played really well, his goal hitting was phenomenal and put himself in that front position to ask for 15 Jersey.”

Indeed, the sharp reality of elite sport means to experience the same success and circumstances at the top are a rare occurrence.

Kearney had to wait until the fifth tour game to play in 2013 because of the knee, which was only two folds that started before the first test.

In the end, Halfpenny played so well that he was named a player of the series in Australia, while Kearney missed all three tests – something did even more tests, he says, for memory of 2009.

“It was difficult because I had to experience the incredible peaks of playing in the 2009 tests. When you get a taste and feel it, that’s the only thing you want to do again.

“I was disappointed because Tommy Bowe had an injury and there was a chat inside and out, Halfpenny could move to one of the wings and I got in 15. There was little hope.

“Leigh did incredibly good, so I knew how to write on the wall. Since then, the only way I needed to enter was the injury.

“I didn’t play in any test matches, and because I did it in 2009, in 2013 I did not have the same sense of achievement for me.

“Although there is a huge involvement for all the players and the whole meeting is part of the series’ victory, it is not the same if you are not on the test team.”

‘Not getting 100 Irish caps my biggest low – I desperately wanted it’

A source of extraordinary consistency for Ireland under Joe Schmidt, Kearney sits directly in front of the top 10 for most caps in Irish history.

In 2018, he became the first player from his nation to begin in all 10 tests of two Grand Slam campaign – a record that he still holds alone.

Looking back, it’s a 38-year-old somewhat surprising names as the biggest career regret.

“My biggest low point would not be getting 100 caps for my country. I always desperately wanted to. It’s an elite club.

“I ended up on 95 Irish caps – 98 if you turn on three lions – but I missed 30 games with injury and 15 or so there were a few injuries to soft tissue or knee injury that could easily pass.

“I always tell myself that this is just a number, but that was the number I desperately wanted to reach.”

As for the prominent part, Kearney’s mind turns to lions.

“Becoming a lion at the very top.

“Playing for your World Cup country is also an amazing something that every child dreams of. But the lions are so special that it is ranked even a little more than that.

“There is a huge amount of prestige and history related to that ridge. This is definitely the most special thing I have achieved from a rugby perspective.”

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