LAST UPDATE | 26 Sep 2023
WHATEVER WAY THE departure of Austin Gleeson from the Waterford hurling panel is dressed up, whatever coat of gloss is added and whatever half-promises are made around a return in 2025, his loss is an insurmountable blow to Waterford, and a great pity for the game itself.
“I just don’t have the drive to do it, really,” the 28-year-old told the Irish Examiner.
The news broke on Monday night and it deprives the country of a hurling exclamation mark for 2024. Beyond that? Nobody can say for certain.
The pity is that he has too many reasons not to just turn up at the team testing, go through the motions and search in vain for his motivation.
In the piece, Gleeson already admitted to questioning his appetite to go in for 2023 and how he his mind was changed after consulting with manager Davy Fitzgerald, performance coach Donncha O’Callaghan and his own team mates.
Nothing takes the edge off a player’s appetite than injury however. He carried hamstring issues into the season and eventually suffered a tear against Tipperary in March.
During the summer, his action was limited to coming on as a sub against Limerick and Cork. His only start was against Clare and after that, he wasn’t able to take his place for the final dead rubber game against Tipperary with a thigh strain.
In stepping away, it once again brings focus to the general turnover of Waterford’s team.
From the 2017 All Ireland final team, Philip and Pauric Mahony and Barry Coughlan all left the county scene with plenty to offer, while Tadhg De Burca has battled injury problems. Noel Connors was deemed surplus to requirements by Liam Cahill in October 2019.
Take the 2020 All-Ireland final team and the losses add up. Goalkeeper Stephen O’Keefe is happy excelling with Ballygunner. In general it’s clear that their excellence and sole focus with the club has deprived the county team.
Shane McNulty’s broken bone in his foot ruled him out of this year, Kevin Moran retired, and now Gleeson has stepped away for however long.
Limerick’s dominance might serve to raise standards ever higher in the game, but at some point the lack of consistency with Waterford has to be an enormous frustration to Gleeson and his contemporaries.
Their record since the introduction of the Munster round robin has been appalling. The straight knockout format of 2020 gave them a reprieve until an All-Ireland final defeat in front of a stadium in the dead of winter.
With Davy Fitzgerald back as Waterford manager this year, they earned the right to beat Limerick on the opening day in Thurles, but shooting let them down.
The next two losses, by nine points to Cork and then 12 to Clare, left them that their sole win, against Tipperary, was of no use to them.
Even before last year, the record was alarming. A win over Tipp in 2022 and a draw in 2018 aside, the other ten round robin games were defeats. Some days they went home feeling they were rounding a corner, other days they traipsed home in shame. Either way, the margin of losses sat at just under ten points.
That has to wear you down eventually.
Few players land oven-ready as Gleeson did from minors. He won the All-Ireland final at centre back against Galway in 2013 before slotting straight into the senior team for their 1-21 each draw with Cork in the Munster opener the following May.
That day he announced himself ten minutes into the second half, fielding a ball and producing one of those mazy runs that were to become his trademark before flashing it past Anthony Nash in the Cork goal.
Late in the game he then conceded an avoidable free for a foul on Nash. Patrick Horgan levelled up the scores with the punishment. Lapses in discipline have been a recurring feature throughout his career.
He has previously spoken at length at his struggles to get weight off following the 2017 final. The monastic lifestyle that is required doesn’t always come natural to all players.
And yet there is no doubting his talent. In 2016, he won Young Hurler of the Year and Hurler of the Year, emulating Clare’s Tony Kelly from 2013.
“This past season was my 10th – I came straight out of minor and into the seniors. I know a lot of other people have done that and played on longer but I know in my own head I just need to get this break,” he said in the Examiner interview.
The thought occurs that in stepping away at 28, we apply crude and outdated measures in evaluating his career.
In this age of total and absolute commitment, the split season guaranteeing that players have no chance of being raced more lightly than before, perhaps ten years is long enough for anyone to give to a county jersey.
So far in his career, he has been a human highlights reel. His goals, the mazy runs, the point from a sliding position and turf-to-hand-to-point stunt against Cork in Thurles, his ability to fling points over like slingshots with those wrists, his sideline cuts from downtown…
Players such as Gleeson light up the game and attract the youth. He’s the type that the children seek out to have their hurls autographed.
There’s a brand recognition that comes with having that slightly uncommon name of Austin, but it’s franked with talent, audacity and above all bravery to try things in a game when players are conforming to the gameplan ever more.
But sometimes it feels as though the game doesn’t love these players back as much.
As ever, the shadow of Limerick looms over all. If their dominance wasn’t so total, would semi-retirement seem as attractive?