Limerick had their tails up following their first victory of the season against Sligo last week, and started with intent, with wingers Lee-J Lynch and Shane Treacy causing both Bohs full backs problems. The opening goal came unsurprisingly from a cross, with full-back Ian Turner delivering a perfect whipped ball onto the head of Vinny Faherty, who leapt above Anto Murphy and produced a fine header into the top corner of Dean Delany’s net. The 800-strong home crowd were already dreaming of survival.

Bohs clicked into life, and Jake Kelly should have scored when he found himself all alone in front of goal following a Paddy Kavanagh cross, but the former Dundalk man delayed too long, and allowed Freddy Hall to make the save. The equaliser came with five minutes to go before half time. This time Kelly was the provider, launching an inch-perfect corner onto Izzy Akinade’s head. The big striker made no mistake from six yards, nodding past Hall to send the teams in level.

The Gypsies came flying out of the traps in the second half, and Akinade produced what looked to be the decisive moment in the 51st minute. Reacting to a long throw from Anto Murphy, he bulled past Patrick Kanyuka, and was through on goal before the defender hauled him down. It was an easy decision for referee Sean Grant – penalty for Bohs and a red card for Kanyuka. Jake Kelly stepped up and rifled the penalty home for his first Bohs goal – and bookies would have paid out on an away win.

However, the Russell family had other ideas. Manager Martin sent on his son Sean, and within two minutes, the youngster had equalised with an amazing strike. The substitute unleashed a fearsome snapshot from 25 yards that flashed past Delany before he could even move. The pendulum swung back in Bohs favour on 68 minutes. This time, Lopes put Kelly through, and the new man got his second with a neat finish inside Hall’s near post. 3-2 Bohs, but there was much more drama to come.

Full credit to Limerick, they sensed weakness in the Bohs backline and punished it. The 3-3 equaliser was scored by Lee Lynch, who volleyed home following a corner scramble. Then, incredibly, the home side took the lead with 15 to go. Robbie Creevy, only just on for the injured Anto Murphy, hauled down Dean Clarke just inside the box. Bohs protested that the foul originated outside the area, but referee Grant was happy to award his second spot kick of the night. Shane Treacy’s penalty was un-saveable – pinging in off the inside of the post.

With 15 minutes to save it, Bohs missed a couple of unbelievable chances. Akinade had a shot wonderfully blocked by Robbie Williams, but Dave Mulachy had the best chance of all. With the game entering injury time, Mulcahy found himself 8 yards out with only Hall to beat, but blazed wide and over. It summed up the evening for Bohs, who headed back up the M7 with much to ponder.

Limerick FC: Freddy Hall, Shaun Kelly, Patrick Kanyuka, Robbie Williams, Shane Tracy, Shane Duggan, Paul O’Conor, Ian Turner (Seán Russell, 56), Lee-J Lynch, Dean Clarke (Darragh Rainsford, 86), Vinny Faherty. Subs not used: Tommy Holland, Tony Whitehead, Paudie O’Connor, Ross Mann, Cyril Guedjé.

“It confirmed what we knew already: individually and collectively, we have to be right on top of our game to get results.”

With a depleted squad going to Cork, Long put Jake Kelly into the line-up just over 24 hours after the 25-year-old forward completed his signing from Dundalk.

The manager knew what he could expect of his recruit, having worked with him at Bray, and entrusted him with corners and free-kicks despite Kelly not having trained with the squad.

One of Kelly’s efforts on goal, early in the second half, hit the cross-bar. “If that had gone in, the dynamic of the game changes, and we are back in it. But overall we have no complaints. We got what we deserved from the game, which was nothing,” said Long.

“Jake’s got good quality and he’ll benefit from those 80 minutes. He hasn’t played from the start too often this season. When he integrates with the group fully and gets up to match fitness, you’ll see what he can contribute.”

Twenty-eight points behind Bohemians in the league table, Limerick will battle for anything they can get from the game. “Martin [Russell] has made changes and brought in new faces and, with the win over Sligo, the mood in their camp has got to be good. We’re wary of the threat that Limerick pose,” said Long.

Bohemians began the present campaign in March with a 3-0 win at Limerick’s temporary home, Jackman Park, but two months later needed a late goal from Jason Byrne to clinch a 2-1 win over Limerick at Dalymount.

For Saturday, Anto Murphy and Paddy Kavanagh make a “welcome” return to the squad following suspension. Lorcan Fitzgerald’s recovery from hamstring injury has been slower than anticipated and he is likely to miss this game. Derek Pender, Dan Byrne and Marc Griffin are out for the longer term.

Ireland were due to play England at 5:30 that afternoon, a historic meeting between the two nations as this was a first time the English national side had agreed to play an FAI selected team since the split with the IFA in 1921.

After decades of being ignored and ostracised by the English FA the FAI had finally secured a fixture against a formidable English side in Dalymount Park. In the minds of the FAI committee of 1946 this was the biggest game in its relatively short history. There was only one problem, their centre-forward, West Brom’s Davy Walsh had pulled out through injury.

This was the purpose of Hutchinson’s call to Mick O’Flanagan, the 24 year old Bohemian striker was being asked to line out against the inventors of the beautiful game at the last minute.

As O’Flanagan remembered:

“I went home to Terenure for a bite to eat, had a short rest and then headed off to Dalymount. It was not really sufficient notice as only the previous evening I had brought a party of English journalists to Templeogue tennis club and I hadn’t got home until nearly two in the morning.”

Despite a laughable lack of preparation, the Irish side put it up to their illustrious opponents who had hammered an IFA selection 7-2 just days earlier. It was only a Tom Finney winner eight minutes from time that sealed victory for the English.

Henry Rose in the Daily Express was moved to write:

“If ever a team deserved to win Eire did. They out-played, out-fought, out-tackled, out-starred generally the cream of English talent, reduced the brilliant English team of Saturday to an ordinary looking side that never got on top of the job.”

Not only did Mick O’Flanagan line out against the likes of Finney, Billy Wright, Tommy Lawton and Raich Carter, he did so alongside his older brother, and fellow Bohemian, Kevin (pictured).

Brothers Kevin and Mick O’Flanagan are unique in world sport as not only did they play international football for their country, they both were capped by Ireland at Rugby, making them the only pair of brothers in the world to play for their nation in both codes.

Mick was capped against Scotland in 1948 as part of the last Irish Grand Slam winning side until 2009, while Kevin had been capped a year previous to that against Australia. This unique achievement is one that isn’t likely to be repeated anytime soon.

Despite this singular accomplishment the sporting careers of the brothers could have been even more illustrious had it not been for the outbreak of World War 2. Both brothers were lining out for Bohemians when hostilities commenced in 1939, Mick a 17-year-old just beginning his career, his older brother Kevin at 20 had been a first-teamer for four years, had already captained Bohemians and had seven Irish caps and three goals to his name as well as being selected to play for Northern Ireland.

While the League of Ireland would continue during the war years, international football would cease for Ireland until 1946. Similarly, Olympic competition would cease which would rob Kevin the chance of competing in the Olympiads of 1940 and 1944. Kevin, at the time was a medical student in UCD, was Irish sprint champion at 60 and 100 yards as well as being national long jump champion.

He had even been a promising GAA footballer, lining out for the Dublin minor panel alongside Johnny Carey (Carey and O’Flanagan would both make their international debuts as teenagers against Norway in 1937) before being dropped because of his involvement with the “Garrison game”.

Young Michael would also miss out, his best goal scoring season would be 1940-41 where he finished as the League’s top scorer with 19 goals for Bohs. Had war not been raging across Europe he might rightly have expected to have more than his solitary international cap.

Both brothers remained committed to the amateur ethos of the club which explains the duration of their stays at Bohemians. Mick as a publican in the city centre and Kevin as a medical student and later a Doctor weren’t likely to be swayed by the offer of a couple of extra quid a week from a rival club.

Indeed Kevin took his commitment to the Corinthian ideal to the extreme, upon qualifying as a doctor in 1945 he had been offered a position as a GP in Ruislip, London. Despite this move he kept up and even increased his sporting activities, he signed on with Arsenal as an amateur while also lining out as a Rugby player for London Irish, when Arsenal invited him to submit his expense claims, they were shocked that he asked for just 4p, the cost of his tube journey from Ruislip to Arsenal.

Bernard Joy, a team-mate of Kevin’s at Arsenal, and a fellow amateur, noted in his history of the club that Arsenal secretary Bob Wall quipped that Kevin “did not want to know anything about tactics. I play football the way I feel it should be played’, he would say.”

Arsenal coach Tom Whittaker said that O’Flanagan could have been “one of the greatest players in football history” if only he could have gotten him to train properly. Despite only spending one full season with the Arsenal first team (for whom he scored three times) Kevin would make a big impression.

No lesser an authority than Brian Glanville described him thus:

“A fascinating, amateur, figure in those Arsenal teams between 1945 and 1947 was the powerfully athletic Irish outside right, the hugely popular Dr. Kevin O’Flanagan. Coming from Dublin to London to take up a general medical practice, he demonstrated pace, strength and a fearsome right foot. He attained the distinction of playing soccer for Ireland on a Saturday, rugby for them the following Sunday.”

Between them, the O’Flanagan brothers would spend almost 20 years as players for Bohemians, while their younger brother Charlie O’Flanagan, a winger, would also line out for the club in the 1946-47 season.

Kevin would return to the Dalymount in another role, that of the club’s Chief Medical Officer and despite his retirement as a player he would remain hugely busy as a sporting physician and sports administrator. He was a member of the International Olympic Committee for almost 20 years before being made an Honorary Lifetime member upon his retirement and was the Chief Medical Officer of numerous Irish Olympic teams throughout the 1960’s and 70’s.

Despite missing out as a competitor, “The Flying Doctor” would manage to make a huge contribution to the Olympics and to Irish Sport in general.
Despite their almost twenty years service in the red and black of Bohs and the almost two hundred goals scored between them the honours list for the two brothers was relatively short. Both brothers combined to help Bohs win the Inter-City Cup in 1945 in somewhat controversial circumstances.

A year later after Kevin left for London, Mick scored an astonishing six goals in Bohs 11-0 victory over local rivals Grangegorman in the Leinster Senior Cup final, a record not likely to be broken any time soon by a Bohemian player in a cup final.

So much about the brothers’ careers is unique or exceptional, so in this our 125th year it’s worth remembering two of the greatest all-round sportsmen that Ireland has ever produced.

Despite the flurry of first-half goals and eventual 4-2 victory over Derry last weekend, Long expects more of his players.

“It was a chance to put a team to the sword, which we haven’t done. Derry were frail at the back and we exposed them ruthlessly in a 10-minute spell, but we went out of the game for long periods.

“It was a chance to improve our goal difference and we didn’t capitalise on that. But ultimately we are judged on the three points. It was a win and we can’t be too disappointed.”

Long was pleased with the success, yet again, of a Bohemians set-piece, which led to the first goal, and with how his team dealt with the loss of Ismahil Akinade at the end of the first half and later playing for 12 minutes with ten men, while Paddy Kavanagh was being treated for a facial injury.

For Friday Bohemians must prepare without Anto Murphy and Kavanagh, both suspended. Murphy completes his two-game ban for a red card, and Kavanagh misses one game for accumulated yellow cards.

Lorcan Fitzgerald (hamstring), is rated a 50/50 chance to be available. So too is Akinade (shoulder), who took a heavy fall in last week’s defeat of Derry City. Dan Byrne and Marc Griffin are out with long-term injuries.