Mack Hansen deserves an award for his honesty not a slap on the wrist

It will be four years in January since we lost Jerry Kiernan. But it's still hard to accept that he's not around. There are times when, scrolling through the phone for a number, Kiernan's pops up.

And, for a moment, there's an urge to give him a shout to shoot the breeze. Maybe the fact that the number hasn't been deleted is telling, that it's a finality we don't want to confront.

Whenever I met Kiernan, it was in the same place - Er Buchetto, an Italian coffee shop in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh. Once I was the first to arrive and got a table with a nice window view. Ordered coffee and a glass of water and waited.

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Kiernan had the most recognisable mullet in Ireland so there was no mistaking him when he walked through the door.

I waved, he waved back. Then he sat down at a different table.

"This is where I always sit." When you met with Jerry Kiernan, you did so on his terms. There is now a plaque on the wall marking that seat as Jerry's spot.

What made him such engaging company was the fact that he had no filter. His views were unvarnished, and often had a jagged edge.

During his own running days, Kiernan was a special talent. Good enough to finish ninth in the marathon at the 1984 Olympics, he was also a sub four-minute miler.

He grew up worshipping Kerry football god Mick O'Connell but watching the 1964 Olympics on a neighbour's television converted him to athletics.

To Kiernan, the GAA was small potatoes.

"I feel that there's a lot of wasted talent that could be doing other stuff,'' he once told me.

"They talk of the pride of the parish but why can't the pride of the parish be soccer?

"I often think of countries like Croatia and the passion they have, qualifying for World Cups.

"That's the only passion I subscribe to - Irish people doing well abroad.

"The GAA is parochial stuff really and I don't think there's an awful lot to it."

Er Buchetto was and is also popular with Leinster rugby players, and we'd watch them troop in for a caffeine boost after training.

Kiernan had a jaundiced view of their sport too, once delivering an exasperated 'no-one plays rugby!' during a discussion on Off the Ball.

Mack Hansen was still in Australia playing for Brumbies when we lost Kiernan, but we suspect that he'd see a kindred spirit there.

Hansen is a maverick. A man who has tattoos of the faces of both Ireland coach Andy Farrell and Connacht teammate Oisin Dowling. He also has the name 'Gerry Dooley' inked on his flesh, in honour of another teammate, Peter Dooley, but Hansen calls him Gerry...

You get the drift. Hansen does things his own way. There was more evidence of that in an airless press room at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday evening.

Hansen's Connacht had fallen short against Leinster and the full-back couldn't hide his frustration.

He hit out at the officiating, and put forward the view that Connacht often struggle to get decisions in games.

Many rugby players treat press conferences like a LinkedIn post. There is the same dreary waffle about work-ons and learnings.

Hansen couldn't be more different. The language he used on Saturday evening was blunt, direct, and what some call industrial. It was Kiernanesque.

Four years in the west has given Hansen a good grounding in where Connacht stand.

Connacht have, for most of their history, felt unloved and unwanted. We only have to go back just over 20 years to 2003 when the IRFU made the decision to disband the province.

Thousands marched in protest, and the death sentence was commuted. But is the will there to improve Connacht and to try and turn them into a major force?

Leinster, year on year, produce more talented players through their private school to academy system than they know what to do with. Think of how a regular influx of those would bring Connacht on.

Being nice and throwing out platitudes hasn't got them anywhere. And they're not alone in that in Irish sport. There's a lot to be said for a bit of anger.

Hansen showed the way on Saturday. There's talk of him getting a ban when, really, he should win an award.

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