Pa Bourke showed serious guts today in the Munster club hurling quarter-final between Thurles Sarsfields and Ballygunner as he put a disastrous penalty attempt behind him to land a '65 in the dying moments to send Sarsfields into the semi-final on a scoreline of 0-17 to 0-16.
To miss a penalty in such a fashion - especially being the class hurler that Bourke is - could bury a player and make them regress into a mire of depression for the rest of the game. What's more, a goal at this point would have put Sarsfields five points ahead and into a seriously powerful position. Luckily this penalty attempt is something Bourke will be able to look back at and perhaps have a chuckle about. Stephen O'Keeffe was certainly only too grateful to accept the gift.
At this point we can only imagine what was going through Bourke's head. But such is the changeability of sport - within half an hour he made sure spectators were shaking their heads in amazement for all the right reasons.
The definition of bottle.
