Until the last breath………But sometimes it comes where and when we least expect it, like the dying days long after the final whistle has blown

Heroes and heroics come in all shapes and sizes in sport. But sometimes it comes where and when we least expect it, like the dying days long after the final whistle has blown, writes Ewan MacKenna

This is the story of two very different men from very different sports who played at very different levels with very different degrees of success. But what they now share is a very similar fate.

The year is 1995 and Anto Finnegan is still pinching himself that he’s made the Antrim team for a second consecutive summer although in places like his, reality jostles in. They train hard and convince themselves that it’s 15-on-15 only to do what the county always does and bow out in their opening match. Around that same time, Joost van der Westhuizen is a scrum-half with a complete game. He can wriggle through the smallest gap and can tackle too as shown as he fells Jonah Lomu during the World Cup final. He feeds the pass that sees South Africa win it so soon after apartheid, meets Nelson Mandela, sees his sport somehow try to heal…………. see more at :- http://ewanmackenna.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/until-the-last-breath/