The Lansdowne Household had been devastated to listen to of the passing of one in every of our biggest Worldwide gamers and an impressive character, Pat Casey.
Our deepest condolences exit to his pretty spouse Ann, sons Billy (a star U19 participant at Lansdowne) and Tony, and daughter Judith (who’s married to former Lansdowne star and coach Stephen O’Connor).
Pat himself was a famend faculties participant with CBC Monkstown driving them to the Senior Cup semi-final in 1958 the place they misplaced 3-0 to a powerful Terenure crew after dropping a participant early within the recreation and no subs allowed.
He went to UCD and took the place by storm each on and off the sector. And he fitted in a bComm alongside the best way and ended up a Chartered Accountant. After that it was like a whirlwind that hit Lansdowne.
A notable group of lads joined the membership round that point and all grew to become lifelong pals and legends of the membership. Dr. John Craig, his physician and buddy, Noel Dwyer, Donal Chambers, Eddie Byrne, Noel Hoffman, Bryan O’Neill, Paul van Cauwelaert, and Joe McAvin (Bective) to call however a number of.
Pats rugby flourished as did his profession in finance. Starring many instances for Leinster, he went on to put on the inexperienced jersey of Eire 12 instances with nice satisfaction, culminating in what has been acknowledged as Eire’s biggest ever attempt v England at Twickenham in 1964.
Open your creativeness to the mercurial Mike Gibson slicing by means of the England protection at his personal 10 yard line, and because the protection recovered Gibson headed left and executed an ideal ‘scissors’ with Centre Jerry Walshe. Walsh was clear however tailing in direction of the appropriate contact line and going contained in the England 22. Because the tacklers approached he noticed a blur of tempo and energy reducing again from the appropriate as Caso known as for a scissors and he took the ball at full flight to crash beneath the posts for a “attempt for all ages”.
If you consider sports activities biggest moments that come to thoughts…….the names Bolt, Messi, Ronaldo, Wilkinson, Pigott, Farrah, Greatest, Charlton, Pele, O’Gara, O’Driscoll and Caso !!
Pat was a implausible character, universally cherished in Lansdowne. Filled with enjoyable and laughter and happy with his nice household and completely happy residence. He additionally gave it again to Lansdowne in spades, taking part in down the groups within the membership to the third B’s and starring on the World Golden Oldies for Lansdowne in 1981 and 1993.
Pat has bourne his sickness within the intervening years with nice bravery, struggle and humor. The love and assist of his household was ‘key’ to his will to stay and right now a fantastic gentleman joins the record of Lansdowne Legends who’ve handed this fashion. And my very own story is like so many, I used to be honored to have performed on the identical pitch as this splendid man, to have listened to his hilarious tales and to have had my life enriched within the course of.
Mick Quinn LFCTID.