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Rob Kearney: 'I'm still, to this day, waiting for an apology'
By Ian Cameron
Rugby’s a funny game. It’s a sport where any given player – whatever has just happened in the previous 80 minutes – traditionally walks off the field and shakes his opponent’s hand, maybe apologizes for stepping over the mark, if that’s what’s happened, and everyone moves on.
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But it doesn’t always play out like that.
Recently retired Rob Kearney recalls one incident where he is still waiting – 13 years on – for an apology from the perpetrator of an awful tackle attempt that floored him in the 2009 Six Nations.
Italian fullback Andrea Masi received a yellow card for clotheslining Kearney WWE style just 45 seconds into the game at the Stadio Flaminio. It would have easily been a red card by today’s standards, but in 2009 all it warranted was 10 minutes in the bin.
It makes for a pretty funny yarn – the way Kearney tells it at least.
“He played with Wasps for a long time and by all accounts he’s a bloke that seems pretty popular and someone that guys got on with,” Kearney told RugbyPass’ The Offload podcast.
“But I’ll never forget after that [the tackle] he stood up, right over me, and he had clotheslined me. He nearly took my head off.
“I jumped up and he was screaming in my face. ‘You liked that mother****er, you liked that mother****er?
“I thought this guy was absolutely off the wall crazy. Then I saw him at the post-match function that night and he had this look in his eyes. He’s like staring at me.
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“I was like surely an apology wouldn’t go astray? I was 23 and it was my second Six Nations and I knew the Italians were passionate, but I didn’t think they were that bonkers.”
No apology or mea culpa was forthcoming from the Italian great, although he was cited for the incident.
“I played against him a few times after that. Once in the Heineken Cup a few years later and I remember going over to him, thinking ”Things have settled down a bit now, he’ll take the opportunity to say ‘oh, yeah sorry, I didn’t mean to,’ although he clearly did.
“No nothing. I’m still waiting, to this day, for an apology.”
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“But as you can see,” jokes Kearney. “I’ve gotten over it. It’s not sticking with me I swear.”
