John O'Neill (born 18 September 1973) is an Irish former

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

player.

Career

Born in Ballina, O'Neill first began playing rugby for Highfield's underage teams, before joining their senior team at the age of 17. He then joined another Cork club,

Sundays Well Sunday's Well () is a suburb of Cork city in Ireland. It is situated in the north-west of the city, on a ridge on the northern bank of the River Lee. Sunday's Well is part of the Dáil constituency of Cork North-Central. The area's GAA club i ...

, where his performances saw him join the

Munster Munster ( gle, an Mhumhain or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the south of Ireland. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" ( ga, rí ruirech). Following the ...

squad ahead of the 1998–99 season, going on to play in the

2000 Heineken Cup Final The 2000 Heineken Cup Final was the final match of the 1999–2000 Heineken Cup, the fifth season of Europe's top club rugby union competition. The match was played on 27 May 2000 at Twickenham Stadium in London. The match was contested by Nort ...

defeat against English side Northampton Saints and again in the inaugural final of the eltic league finaln 2001 defeat against Leinster. In 2002 he went on to play against Leicester in the Heineken cup final in the millennium stadium where Munster were defeated again . He is perhaps best known for scoring the infamous "try that wasn't" in Munster's 16–15

Heineken Cup The European Rugby Champions Cup (known as the Heineken Champions Cup for sponsorship reasons) is an annual rugby union tournament organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the top-tier competition for clubs who compete in a pre ...

semi-final defeat against

Stade Français Stade Français Paris Rugby () is a French professional rugby union club based in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The club plays in the Top 14 domestic league in France and is one of the most successful French clubs of the modern era. The ...

in 2001. O'Neill scored a try in the corner to win the game but it was disallowed by the referee, who had judged that the ball had gone into touch before O'Neill grounded it. Despite television replays proving that O'Neill had in fact scored a legitimate try, the video evidence could not be used, as it was only available in the Six Nations at the time. The try would have given Munster the win, but instead Stade hung on for the victory. O'Neill was called up to the

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

squad that toured

new Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

in 2002 but he never won any international caps. He retired from rugby due to an ankle injury in July 2004 and has since gone on to become a community rugby officer for the province.

References

External links

Munster Profile
*
John O'Neill
at

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Living people 1973 births Rugby union players from County Cork Irish rugby union players Cork Constitution players Sundays Well RFC players Shannon RFC players Munster Rugby players Rugby union wings {{Ireland-rugbyunion-bio-stub