Munster Rugby captain Peter O’Mahony has apologised to Garryowen rugby club after he branded its under-15s team “f***ers” in a video he sent to their opponents before a game last week.
Players, parents and officials in Garryowen, one of Limerick’s most successful clubs and a feeder team for Munster, were shocked to find that O’Mahony had recorded a message disparaging their boys’ team while sending good wishes to UL Bohemians, their opponents in the north Munster league final.
In the video, which was widely circulated on WhatsApp, O’Mahony told the UL Bohs team: “I hope you get stuck into those Garryowen f***ers.” He added: “I never liked them.”
Audrey Coffey, chairman of Garryowen’s underage rugby section, wrote to all parents and players in the club last Tuesday thanking them for the messages of “concern and upset” they had sent after becoming aware of the video.
“I understand the frustrations and upset this message has caused,” Coffey wrote. “The club has actively been working on the incident since it came to light.”
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Coffey said the video held “inappropriate comments directed towards our under-15s team and the wider club in general” and was reported to the club’s executive committee last Monday morning.
The club’s officers were said to have expressed their “deep concern” about O’Mahony’s comments. On Monday afternoon Garryowen’s president got a phone call from O’Mahony in which he expressed “sincere remorse” for the video “and the effect it had on the under-15s, their coaches, parents and the wider club”.
Coffey’s letter said O’Mahony had made a second video, for Garryowen, while the Munster captain had also undertaken to write to the club and to meet the under-15 team. UL Bohemians, who won the game, apologised for the video.
The letter added that Garryowen believed respect for opponents and officials was an integral part of the game but on this occasion this standard was not kept “by others outside our club”.
This weekend Eoghan Prendergast, Garryowen’s honorary secretary, said the matter had been dealt with and his club now considered the issue “closed”.
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Munster Rugby said it understood the matter had concluded with Garryowen FC’s “acceptance . . . of Peter O’Mahony’s direct apology”.