Game of Throw-Ins

2016 | Fiction & Poetry

I was a rugby player with a great future behind me. A 35-year-old father-of-five with an expanding waistline, who was trying to survive the bloody battlefield we call everyday life. My son was locked in a violent turf war with a rival Love/Hate tour operator, my daughter was in love with a boy who looked like Justin Bieber and my old dear was about to walk up the aisle with a 92-year-old billionaire who thought it was still 1936. I was, like, staring down the barrel of middle age with the contentment of knowing that I was the greatest Irish rugby player who no one in Ireland had ever actually heard of. Until a chance conversation with an old Jesuit missionary made me realize that it wasn't enough. I was guided, as if by GPS, to a muddy field in - let's be honest - Ballybrack. And there I finally discovered my destiny - to keep a struggling Seapoint team in Division 2B of the All Ireland League. Or die trying.

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly (Author)