Moss Keane RIP

[anglocelt39]

Maybe I've gone blind but I'm surprised a thread has  not already been started. Sigerson Cup Medalist, Kerry Underage Player, 50 plus Rugby Caps, Lion Tourist and member of THAT team that beat the All Blacks. Most importantly though a real throw back to the best of the amateur days and a  number of people who would have known him through work described him  as  a totally unassuming but very amusing character. Will always remember those surging runs out of the rucks in an Irish jersey in the 1980's ball under arm.

His Biography which he worked on with Billy Keane, "Rucks Mauls and Gaelic Football" is a great read.

Rest in Peace Mossy

[Shamrock Shore]

In the death notices thread!

[anglocelt39]

In the death notices thread!

Deserves better than that I would have thought, don't recall Hurricane Higgins being in the Death Notices thread, nor Stephen Gately now that I think of it

[boojangles]

Very sad news. Always struck me as a very unassuming man and great character. May he rest in peace.

[Billys Boots]

Wow, a hierarchy for dead people.  I'm impressed. 

[stephenite]

I thought the same Billy, here isn't the place for it but I thought of opening a poll that names 2 living famous people every week and having people vote on who deserves their own thread and who should just join the rest if them in the Death notice thread. I'm struggling for a title though

[Evil Genius]

I thought the same Billy, here isn't the place for it but I thought of opening a poll that names 2 living famous people every week and having people vote on who deserves their own thread and who should just join the rest if them in the Death notice thread. I'm struggling for a title though

Hmmm, let me see, a public vote on who should get his own Obit Thread and who gets bumped off the show into the general Death Notices...

You could call it "The Ex-Factor" maybe?

P.S. Met Moss Keane in a car park at Twickenham once, before an England v Ireland game. Then bumped into Frank Carson a wee bit later. Moss was funnier. A great man altogether.

[the Deel Rover]

I thought the same Billy, here isn't the place for it but I thought of opening a poll that names 2 living famous people every week and having people vote on who deserves their own thread and who should just join the rest if them in the Death notice thread. I'm struggling for a title though

Hmmm, let me see, a public vote on who should get his own Obit Thread and who gets bumped off the show into the general Death Notices...

You could call it "The Ex-Factor" maybe?

P.S. Met Moss Keane in a car park at Twickenham once, before an England v Ireland game. Then bumped into Frank Carson a wee bit later. Moss was funnier. A great man altogether.

In fairness that wouldn't have been too tough Eg   They had a good interview with Moss on the matt cooper show yesterday from 2005 a very witty man and a great man to tell a story .  May he rest in peace

[RedandGreenSniper]

A real character in the best sense of the word. His book is a fantastic read, I'd really recommend it. You'll be sore laughing. Rest in peace Moss.

[Hedley Lamarr]

Met him several times in Noel P's on Haddington Rd......very entertaining. R.I.P.

[anglocelt39]

Wow, a hierarchy for dead people.  I'm impressed.

A bit like that programme on the telly that has tickled your interest Billy Greatest ever Irish Person or whatever.

[Leo]

I thought the same Billy, here isn't the place for it but I thought of opening a poll that names 2 living famous people every week and having people vote on who deserves their own thread and who should just join the rest if them in the Death notice thread. I'm struggling for a title though

Hmmm, let me see, a public vote on who should get his own Obit Thread and who gets bumped off the show into the general Death Notices...

You could call it "The Ex-Factor" maybe?

P.S. Met Moss Keane in a car park at Twickenham once, before an England v Ireland game. Then bumped into Frank Carson a wee bit later. Moss was funnier. A great man altogether.

In fairness that wouldn't have been too tough Eg   They had a good interview with Moss on the matt cooper show yesterday from 2005 a very witty man and a great man to tell a story .  May he rest in peace

One memorable quote from him  - junior rugby in Kerry is a bit like pornography - very frustrating to watch but maybe entertaining enough if you are involved!!!

[Evil Genius]

Was iit Moss was the subject* of a story from a Lions Tour to New Zealand some years back?

Apparently Mossy's roommate wakened one morning to the sound of a ring-pull, looked over and saw Moss lying up in bed, starting on a can of beer.

"For fcuk's sake, Moss, it's half nine in the morning!"

"Not back in Kerry, it's not", came the reply...

* - Anyhow, if it wasn't Moss, it should have been 

[5 Sams]

I though this was good...stolen from the Kerry GAA forum and I believe originally from the British Daily Telegraph
Ireland and Lions forward Maurice 'Moss' Keane dies aged 62
Let's do the statistics first. Mossie Keane was 6ft 5in and 20st at his heaviest. He was a top drawer international second row who won 51 caps for Ireland and one for the British and Irish Lions. He helped inspire Munster to their famous 1978 12-0 win over the All Blacks when he took Andy Haden to the cleaners, and indeed performed wonderfully well in their 3-3 draw against New Zealand a few years earlier.

He was a very fine and athletic Gaelic footballer and Kerry under-21 full-back in his youth - he used to play under the name Moss Fenton to trick the GAA, who at the time banned their members from playing the "Brit" game of rugby - and was a decent and enthusiastic golfer in retirement before cancer took a hold.

But, frankly, to hell with statistics. At least on this occasion.They are virtually meaningless when it comes to assessing Mossie Keane, who has died a ridiculously premature death today from cancer, aged 62. The massive Kerry farmer was the epitome of everything we used to hold dear in the game of rugby, and secretly still do.

As the late Bill McLaren used to put it: "Maurice Ignatius Keane. 18 and half stone of prime Irish beef on the hoof, I don't know about the opposition but he frightens the living daylights out of me."

He was an iconic figure in Ireland and throughout much of the rugby playing world as well. There have been better international second rows - though he was top drawer by any criteria - but very few so instantly recognisable. He was "Rugby Man" writ large, his picture counting for a thousand words.

The most famous image is that of a dishevelled Keane, his head swathed in a bloody bandage after some piffling skirmish with the oppostion.

It's up there with Fran Cotton's famous mudman picture from the 1977 Lions tour as rugby's favourite picture. The Man Mountain giving it his all. If the Daily Telegraph cartoonist Matt ever needs a model for "Rugby Man" he should think of Mossie Keane and nobody else.

Keane was a man of the soil and the farmyard, and his sense of humour reflected that. On his international debut in 1974 at the Parc des Princes the French pack went to work on Keane in trademark fashion and soon blood was pumping from a head-wound. Remarkably the cameras caught him laughing as he received treatment.

Why so, he was asked afterwards: "I just suddenly thought it would be handy if somebody had a bucket so we could make a few black puddings," he told the incredulous press in his soft Kerry accent.

Ever the farmer, some nights up in Dublin for an international he used to slip out of the team hotel and go rabbit shooting on the back pitch at Lansdowne Road and then melt into the night when the police cars arrived, lights flashing following reports of shooting in Dublin 4. It's a scenario that can't fail to bring a smile.

In the wild west of Irish Provincial rugby he was the ultimate hard man, and Keane used to put plenty of stick about on the international field as well - although the battles were better policed in the great stadia of the rugby world. Being a proud son of Kerry, he was cunning as a bag of weasels too, a clever and cute operator in close confines.

Contrary to popular opinion he was also extremely well-read, and took first-class honours in his Dairy Science degree. He later worked for the Irish Department of Agriculture.

In his prime he could be a force of nature going forward and Noel Murphy, when chairman of the Munster selectors, famously addressed him thus before his first big Munster game against the 1973 All Blacks: "Moss, you are no longer an experiment, you are a Munster man picked to play against the All Blacks," said the loquacious Murphy.

"Just go out there and cause mayhem. Disrupt their line-out. Stop them getting quick ball. Stand up for yourself and your team. Kerrymen have won more all-Ireland finals than anybody else, you are afraid of nobody. Kerry are the All Blacks of Ireland. That's why we picked you." Strewth, they don't do pre-match speeches like that anymore

Off the field he was quietly spoken and shy, but Keane could also famously neck 20 pints of Guinness without pausing for breath, walk steadily from the bar, and ask if anybody fancied "moving on somewhere else for a proper drink." He was not a man to get in a session with unless you could book a couple of days off work to recover.

Colleagues still talk in awe of the flight from Dublin to Australia for the 1978 tour when he apparently left David Boon's all-comers drinking record for the journey for dead. Survivors of that trip will not mention the exact figure for fear of being disbelieved.

As Keane, employing the famous logic native to Kerrymen, once put it: "I hear that some people believe that not drinking or smoking can prolong their lives. Well in that case they have only got themselves to blame."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyun....es-aged-62.html

Read more: http://kerrygaa.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=3508#ixzz11hxmLGJ2

[mc_grens]

Legend. Gentleman. RIP.