What a difference a year makes.
This time 2018, Ross King was on the floor. Laois had a poor year but that wasn’t the worst of it. The club season rolled around and despite making it to the county final, heartbreak lay in store for Rathdowney Errill.
For Ross King, it was much worse than that.
Losing a county final is one thing, losing some of your teeth in that county final is another. Forced off the field after a dirty, dirty stroke from an opposition player – the pain was mental as well as physical for Rathdowney Errill’s marquee forward.
Ross King would spend the next few months eating his food from a straw.
Disillusioned by the game, hurling was the furthest thing from his mind. And by the time the inter-county season came around, King was still at a loss for inspiration.
He had no motivation to go back playing the game he loved. Eventually, Eddie Brennan worked his magic and the rest as they say, is history.
King would go onto have unrivalled year with Laois, winning the Joe McDonagh Cup and backing it up with a seismic victory over Dublin in Leinster. King, the former UCD soccer player, went onto rattle the net against Tipperary in an All-Ireland quarter final in Croke Park.
It was the stuff of dreams, but there was more to come. Laois died down but the club was back.
To really put a horror 2018 to bed, it was important for King to win with his own club. He did that in some style. In the Laois semi-final, it was Rathdowney Errill against the old nemesis. Camross, and as King says himself, there was a tinge of ‘retribution’ in the air.
Poetic justice and it never tasted so sweet. A last minute stunner from Roddy helped his club claw Camross back, and banish the demons.
They went onto beat Borris/Kilcotton to win their first final since 2014 on Sunday, with King hitting four from play in the final. He summed up a rollercoaster year, and a brilliant few months for Colm Parkinson and GAA Hour listeners on Monday.
“I’m not sucking pints through a straw…It’s been a special few months, you couldn’t write it to be honest,” began King.
“There’s lads who could have hurled for 15 or 16 years and they wouldn’t have that success with the club and county. I’m very grateful because I’ve got it in five or six months, it’s crazy…It’s nice to look back and say we’ve done what we wanted…”
The goal against Camross was sweeter than sweet.
“I was probably walking around ten feet tall to be honest, nearly hit it off the door-frame coming into the house to be honest. I’ve probably never scored a better quality goal and a more important goal in my life. I wouldn’t be a religious fella at all, but I nearly started praying to the lord there during the week to get another one this week. It was really special. If there is a lord up there, I’ve seen something happen two weeks ago that was just a little bit special to do.
“It was a great two weeks, just to get a bit of retribution on Camross for last year – not in a maliceful way – but for ourselves, it was important to get over that, it’s a great satisfaction to get over them along our journey – they’re a serious outfit too and if we were winning a cup, it was important to get our revenge and just to get over Camross…We won it the hard way because Borris Kilcotton are a great team too…”
What a difference a year makes. Ross King is on top of the world now.
You can watch Monday’s GAA Hour Show here.
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