EXCLUSIVE | Richard Dunne on Thierry Henry’s handball: ‘Any one of us would have done the exact same thing.’
EXCLUSIVE | Richard Dunne on Thierry Henry’s handball: ‘Any one of us would have done the exact same thing. ’ Former Republic of Ireland, Everton FC and Manchester City FC defender Richard Dunne spoke exclusively to Get French Football News about the infamous World Cup play-off between France and Ireland in 2009 and about Irish footballing connections with France today. In this first part, we dared to ask Richard about that handball… Of all the Irish players involved in the Thierry Henry handball, you’re probably the one most associated with the incident, just because Henry was pictured sitting chatting to you after the match.
What did he say to you and what did you know at the time he spoke to you? I hadn’t seen the handball because I had jumped up for the initial header and then when the ball landed I had my back to play. But I’d obviously seen the reaction of my teammates, like Shay Given and Kevin Kilbane, players who had seen it, chasing after the referee.
But obviously the play unfolded, they got the goal and then there was anger from the players, from everyone involved. Then at the end of the game, for me it was more of a case of our opportunity having gone. We’d played extra time, we’d had the first leg a few days beforehand, so physically we were drained, we were tired and it was just a case of sitting down and taking a breather, really.
So when he came over and sat next to me I didn’t really take any notice, it didn’t really mean anything to me. But then he said “yeah, I did handle it” and for me it was like well there’s no point telling me, it doesn’t matter to me anymore – if you feel guilty about it you should have told the ref 20 minutes ago. So he was honest enough to say “I handled it”.
And you can think “ah that’s sh*t” or whatever. But the more the time goes by and you sit down and think about it, you think “I probably would have done the same”. It’s part of the game and you try to get an advantage over your opponent and you see it all the time now with players flying all over the place diving and cheating.