‘I’d be lying in bed at night asking ‘why didn’t I get it instead?’ I had a good innings, he was only a youngster’

‘I’d be lying in bed at night asking ‘why didn’t I get it instead?’ I had a good innings, he was only a youngster’

A table of toast and coffee rests between us in the Brogue Inn at the bottom of Rock Street on the Monday before an All-Ireland final. It’s hard to imagine that getting this close to the most famous GAA forward in history was once strictly off limits days before a final.