Draw up a list of the hardest men ever to play gaelic games and Diarmuid ‘The Rock’ O’Sullivan and Francie Bellew would be two of the first names you’d scribble down. But who’d win a fight between the two?
The two legends locked horns during their playing days when O’Sullivan, Cork’s iconic hurling full back, togged out for the footballers in a league game against Armagh at Crossmaglen, the home of Bellew.
With ‘The Rock’ at full forward for the Rebels and Bellew guarding the edge of the square for the men in orange and white, it was a recipe for disaster. And Bellew, as was customary of his man-marking attributes, started “pulling, dragging, kicking.”
“Cork played Armagh in the National Football League the time I was dipping my toes in the football,” recalled the Cork legend on the GAA Social podcast this week.
“You had the perceived hard man of hurling playing full forward on one team and you had the hardest man in football playing full back for the other team. That was going to make for an interesting battle.
“At the time when things were going well, we used to meet each other at All-Star dinners here and there and I always had a great rapport with that Armagh team.
“I’d still be very close with Stevie (McDonnell), we’d be texting back and forth, and I met him there recently and we get on really well. I remember Francie, he was my kind of guy.
“He was a character; he was mad for the craic. At that time, whatever way the night rolled we all kind of rolled the same way.”
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O'Sullivan recalls his clash with the iconic Francie Bellew
Armagh were on the cusp of All-Ireland glory with Joe Kernan, who guided Crossmaglen to three All-Ireland club titles before taking charge of the Orchard County, and he was gearing his side towards their Sam Maguire quest.
O’Sullivan had won an All-Ireland hurling title with the Lee County in 1999 and would go on to win another two in 2004 and 2005 when his attentions fully turned towards the small ball.
“This day, I was playing full forward, Francie was full back. I was thinking ‘ah Jesus.’ Pulling, dragging, kicking and standing on your heels and the usual full back stuff,” O’Sullivan recollected.
“Hurlers don’t do that, he was pulling and dragging. I said ‘Francie, look, I’m not your average full forward here now. I will bite back at some stage’.
“There was a long ball came in and I remember I started my run on the left-hand side and Francie dragged me and just as he dragged, on instinct, my hand came back, and I caught Francie smack bang on the nose.
“Francie was down on his knees and rubbing his eyes, I got the ball and laid it off. All I remember is turning around and thinking to myself, ‘I got him, I got him. I warned him, I told him.”
“What happens next? Was it a smart move from me? I’m not so sure but he came back and was blowing into my ear, and he was growling at me, and I was just thinking, ‘ah no.’
When Diarmuid O’Sullivan met Francie Bellew.
The GAA Social: https://t.co/o4vkBC4JNr pic.twitter.com/L2e7sKgQlf— Thomas Niblock (@thomasniblock) March 20, 2024
While that was as close as the pair got to throwing punches, the two men will go down as county heroes and two of the hardest men to have ever lined out in Croke Park.
