DEATH OF MOSS KEANE:THE WORDS "legend" and "larger than life" are perhaps used a little too freely nowadays but in the case of Moss Keane they could hardly be more apt. News that he has passed away following a lengthy battle with cancer at the age of 62 will have saddened everyone in Irish rugby and much further beyond.
A native of Currow, Co Kerry, Keane was a truly iconic Munster, Ireland and Lions hero of the amateur era and yet much more than that too. Innately kind and good-humoured, a liver of life and raconteur with a sharp mind and wit, as Ciarán Fitzgerald observed yesterday, Keane never appeared to be in a bad mood and bore his long illness with typical good humour and remarkable equanimity.
The tributes which poured in yesterday demonstrate that there have been few more popular people in the game or Irish sport.
An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, TD, commented: “I am saddened to learn today of the untimely passing of Moss Keane who was one of the great gentlemen of Irish sport. He will be sadly missed by his many fans and admirers across the sporting world.
“Moss Keane was one of the finest rugby players Ireland has ever produced. He was among rugby’s best knows characters and a legend of the game at home and abroad, representing Munster, Ireland and the British and Irish Lions with great distinction. He was also an accomplished Gaelic footballer in his younger days.
“Moss will, of course, always be associated with the heroic Munster side of 1978 that defeated the All Blacks in Thomond Park.
“Moss’s loss will be felt most deeply by those who knew him best. I want to extend my deepest sympathies to Moss’s family, his wife Anne, daughters Sarah and Anne Marie, and his friends. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a ainm dhílis.”
Maurice Ignatius Keane started out his sporting career as a Gaelic footballer, playing at college level for University College Cork, and winning a number of medals including the Sigerson Cup. He represented Kerry at under-21 level as a full back.
He was a relative latecomer to rugby, only taking up the game through friends in UCC who organised a novelty/pub match. Within two years he was playing for Ireland. First, while with UCC, he broke into the Munster team and then, having gained a masters degree in dairy science, Keane was transferred by the Department of Agriculture to Dublin (until his retirement in July this year). With that move, he also began a long career and association with Lansdowne (he’d already fallen in love with Lansdowne Road and the club while playing for UCC) in September 1973.
He made his international debut on January 19th, 1974, against France in Paris, a game Ireland lost 9-6, and would go on to win 51 caps over an 11-year period in which, it’s worth noting, he was never dropped.
In an era when caps were much harder to come by, Keane became the third Irish forward, after Willie John McBride and Fergus Slattery, to reach a half century of international appearances. He played in his final international against Scotland on March 3rd, 1984, at Lansdowne Road.
Keane was also a part of the famous Munster side that defeated the All Blacks at Thomond Park in 1978. He toured New Zealand with Phil Bennett’s British and Irish Lions in 1977, making one Test appearance. Reflecting on the highlight of that tour, Keane remarked: “Hearing that Kerry had beaten Cork in the Munster final.” He was also a key man in Ireland’s 1974 Five Nations Championship win and their historic Triple Crown victory in 1982.
As strong as an ox, ironically, the only injury he suffered was after he retired, when conducting a rucking drill while coaching Lansdowne’s McCorry Cup-winning side. His co-coach on that side, and long-time friend and ex-Lansdowne and Irish team-mate, Mick Quinn, was with him on Tuesday night, when Keane was giving out about Munster “losing to you fellas” for the fifth time in a row last Saturday.
“He was just an icon of Irish rugby really; larger than life in a physical sense and also in his personality. The great thing about him is that everybody has a Moss Keane story and the incredible thing is that most of them are true. He’d light up any room he went into and everybody loved him because he was never in bad form. He’d greet everybody, be they a king or a pauper, the same.”
Quinn also tells of how he would bring water from Lourdes on Irish match days which his father gave him and take a drink before every game so that Our Lady would look after him. “Moss would come over to me, bless himself, then pour a bit into his palm and splash it on Willie John McBride and Mike Gibson and tell them that Our Lady would protect them as well. I used to love that, and then afterwards he would tell Gibson he played like a saint.”
Keane, who lived in Portarlington, Co Laois, kept active by playing golf on a weekly basis and five years ago, in collaboration with Billy Keane, he wrote his autobiography, Rucks, Mauls and Gaelic Football, which he ended thus: “I’m not one that thinks of how I’d like to be remembered or shite like that. I’ve had many great days and I’ve been lucky in life. I played rugby 51 times for Ireland and made lasting friendships out of the game. What I achieved was certainly against the odds but sport can throw these things up – that’s the beauty of it.
“I’d like to think that success never went to my head and that if someone, somewhere, was asked they might say ‘Moss Keane? As sure, he did his best’. He did his best. That would do me nicely.”
He did that and more.
Anyone who ever came in contact with Keane would have been enriched by the experience. Truly we shall never see his like again. Our deepest sympathies to his wife Anne, his daughters Sarah and Anne Marie and his legion of friends.
