HE may have picked up a busted nose and a sore lip for his troubles, but Connaire Harrison was a happy man as he sat in the departures lounge at Heathrow airport on Sunday night.
The Down forward travelled back to London in the middle of his Ibiza stag do to play in Neasden Gaels’s intermediate championship final clash with St Joseph’s on Sunday afternoon, before a mad dash back to the airport afterwards.
Harrison clearly wasn’t feeling any ill effects, landing three points and winning two penalties as the Gaels sealed a 2-13 to 0-13 win to secure a league and championship double.
However, the Glasdrumman clubman wasn’t exactly given the warmest of welcomes.
“Ach, I got a bit of a heavy touch in the face, busted my nose and my lip,” he said as he waited for his flight back to the party island on Sunday night.
“There were a few verbals before that as well - ‘f**k away off back to Ibiza’, that sort of thing. But sure, I knew anyway something was probably going to happen after all the publicity around it…”
Harrison had left Belfast with the rest of the 24-man stag party on Friday before returning at lunchtime the next day after promising team-mates he wouldn’t miss the big game.
“I’d a few on the Friday but I knew I had to keep myself half right. I wanted to make sure I was fit to give everything,” added Harrison, who marries fiancée Jaclyn Trainor on New Year’s Eve.
“I know myself if I had stayed any longer… you know the way it would’ve gone yourself, so I got out of there as quick as possible just to get myself right for the final.
“On Saturday I had that brief moment for five or 10 minutes where I was thinking to myself ‘why am I going home?’ But, at the end of the day, the aim from I went over there was for us to win both [league and championship].
“I’ve come so far with the rest of the boys that I didn’t want to let them down.”
Considering the stag was booked six months ago, long before he had even transferred to Neasden, it was just an unfortunate twist that it ended up clashing with the championship final.
“The stag was booked away back in March so I knew months ago the stag would clash with the final if we got to it. We just had to bite the bullet.
“I had planned to go to London to work because I’m getting married at Christmas, the money’s better, and it was an opportunity to go.
“When you’re involved in a county set up, it’s a lot of commitment. I’ve missed stag after stag after stag, different weekends away with the boys, so I just decided, you know what, I’m going to take five nights at it and see how I get on.
“I’m making up for lost time!”
There was a strong Down connection on the Gaels team that came up trumps on Sunday, with eight of the starting 15 – brothers Aidan and Colin Flanagan (An Riocht), brothers Stephen and Conor Doran (Longstone), uncle and nephew Ciaran and Ryan O’Hare and Ross Cunningham (all Ballymartin) – coming from the Mourne County.
O’Hare slotted home the two penalties that Harrison had won to set the Gaels on the way – although the post-match celebrations had to be cut short as the clock ticked down.
“We got one picture after and then literally straight out the gate and away to the airport,” said the 2017 Allstar nominee.
“The game itself started at half four but there was a bit of a delay so we weren’t leaving until 20 past six, we got to the airport at around 10 past seven and the flight was leaving at eight.
“It was a tight enough schedule. If there had been an accident or anything on the way to the airport, we were beat, but thankfully we made it.”
