IRISH ATHLETE DERVAL O’Rourke travelled to Ipswich last week to interview fellow Leesider Roy Keane.

The piece aired on RTÉ Radio One’s John Murray Show this morning – the piece is here. It was really good.

O’Rourke – who counts the Tractor Boys manager as one of her personal heroes, despite the bitter northside-southside divide in the city – blogged about the encounter, summing it up thus:

I finally went to meet and interview Roy Keane. It was an amazing experience. Very very impressive person.

He could not have been nicer. I could blog all day long about him and how super he was but as stated above the hurdler is tired.

I will say though KEANO KEANO KEANO

KEANO indeed.

After the trip to East Anglia, the European championships silver medalist was invited to Ireland’s game against the Springboks in Ballsbridge. She neatly hurdled the whole ticketing fiasco.

Thank you to the IRFU. A few weeks back the IRFU offered to send me tickets to the first international rugby game in the new Aviva. I was delighted and asked my Dad to come with me.

Turns out the tickets were in the president’s box (this was one of those great surprises)! I got to watch Ireland play South Africa from the best seats in the house.

I love big sporting occasions so it was brill. Pity about the result but full credit to ROG for coming on and turning the game around in his 100th cap for Ireland.

O’Gara, it should be noted, is from the southside.