Kieran Donaghy recounts the alleged eye-gouging incident during the closing stages of last year's All-Ireland football final that resulted in a one-match ban for Dublin's Philly McMahon in his new book What Do You Think Of That?

In the autobiography, which will be released next week, the Kerry star gives his side of the controversial incident which he had previously made light of.

"I fight on my back for it [the ball] and manage to grab it again. I'm trying to get up but I'm surrounded by Dubs. One of them is nicking the side of me. Next thing there's a finger pulling at my eye," writes Donaghy.

"I'm just getting to my feet with the ball intact when David Coldrick blows his whistle. Good. Free in. But no. It's a hop ball. Why's it a hop ball?! Some fella's nearly taken the eye out of my f****n' head!

"I run a few steps towards the ref, ball under my arm. I don't roar, I don't show any anger. I just inform him. 'He gouged my eye on the ground, Dave.'

"'Ah, I didn't see that now, Kieran,' he says. Philly McMahon sticks his head in. 'It's two boys competing, that's all!"

"I just look at him, bemused. At this stage I've no issue with him; I think it's someone else who did it. I'm not wanting anyone sent off, I just wanted a free we should have had, and now that we didn't get it, I just want to win this hop ball. The clock is ticking."

In another extract from the book in today's Irish Examiner, Donaghy recalls thinking his marker Rory O'Carroll was responsible for the incident.

"'That was a f***n' low blow, man! You nearly pulled the eye out of my head!'" he said to the Dublin full back immediately afterwards.

"But he [O'Carroll] insists. 'Honestly, man, I didn't touch you.'

"Twenty-four hours later I'll realise he's right. When our train stops off in Rathmore, a couple of our county board officers come up to me all flustered, saying RTÉ News want my reaction to 'the Philly McMahon incident'; supposedly it has been highlighted on The Sunday Game. I'll tell our officers not to worry, I'll handle it, and when I'm asked by the reporter about it, I just give the old line about what happens on the field staying on the field.

"But it's only there in Rathmore that it clicks: So that's why McMahon was so eager to talk to me that time…"

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