LAST UPDATE | 3 Jul 2018
DAVID MEYLER SAYS he’s “thrilled” for his father, John Meyler, who managed Cork to the Munster Senior Hurling Championship title on Sunday.
Meyler junior has already begun pre-season training with new employers Reading and, having flown into Dublin “to avoid all the traffic” on the morning of the game, flew back on Sunday night for Monday morning’s training session.
Though he has fulfilled many a father’s dream in growing up to become an international soccer player, the 29-year-old admits Cork’s memorable victory over Clare – their second successive lowering of The Banner in as many Munster hurling deciders – dictated that Sunday became a lesser-spotted case of a son feeling immensely proud of his dad.
“100%. Obviously, I see the work and time he puts in to it and I’m just thrilled for him”, the former St. Michael’s GAA man told reporters in the tunnel at Páirc Uí Chamoimh following Sunday’s encounter. “I’m delighted not only for him, but the whole team, because I know quite a few of them.”
“He comes and watches my training sessions [to] see if he can pick up anything that would help his hurling coaching,” Meyler said of his father.
“I speak to him every day so he’ll just say he was training, he’s happy with his this is going, he wants to improve this and work on this. It’s only small talk.
“He puts in a lot of time and effort. So to see him involved in a team that wins the Munster championship, in the new round-robin system, is brilliant.”
Indeed, it’s the Munster championship’s new format which has seen Meylers David and John strike a new common ground despite having already been fiercely close.
Where once John would have had a few weeks to mull over a performance and David would have attempted to move him onto the next one, Cork’s schedule this season has been more akin to that which David has become accustomed over in England: the regularity with which the Rebels have played insists upon their manager’s ability to immediately avert his sights to the following week once the final whistle blows.
“Obviously, I had to help him with certain things – the old GAA system where you played and it was a couple of weeks [before you'd play again], he’d dwell over games and I says, ‘You’ve got to move on’.
“Even like now, yeah, it’s brilliant that they’ve won a Munster final, but they’ve got an All-Ireland semi-final coming up, so it’s non-stop. It’s only after it’s all said and done that you can take time to relax and review it all.”
So happy for my Dad. Munster Champions. #RebelsAbu 🔴⚪️ pic.twitter.com/fZ6JTl78E5
— David Meyler (@DavidMeyler7) July 1, 2018
Despite having long since left his hurley on Leeside, the Reading midfielder still follows the back-to-back Munster champions religiously and did so long before his father’s involvement with the senior panel.
Meyler notices a marked difference in the velocity and professionalism with which the game is currently played at inter-county’s top echelon, even in contrast to when Cork were last a dominant hurling force.
Though himself a full-time, professional athlete whose work rate is well renowned, the 24-cap Ireland international believed it “phenomenal” that Cork had so much in the tank towards the end of their two-point win over Clare.
“I have always watched Munster championship since I was a child. Even this year, I could see how close and tight all the games were. This was their [Cork's] fifth championship game – they’ve won three, drawn two – but any game they could have been different with a puck of a ball, it’s so tight.
“I love coming to hurling games. I think hurling is the best sport in the world. For me, the intensity, the speed of it, it is end to end. You look at Clare, eight points up just before half time and you think, ‘Oh God, what is going to happen now?’ And then bang, bang, a goal and a point, we’re back in the game.
It’s in the modern era, it’s the way the game is going and evolving. If you look back when I started off, Brian Corcoran was playing; Seán Óg [Ó hAilpín], Alan Browne and John Browne – they were playing. You got away with a few pints. Now it’s become so… Yes, it’s amateur, but it’s becoming professional with the amount of time and effort these guys put in, and you look at them – they’re athletes.
“They could easily run full-pelt for 70 minutes with the speed of hurling and they have to be fit,” Meyler adds.
And if you look at them today, even the last few minutes there, they’re still powering through which is phenomenal for me, even, watching on.
Meyler was once a ‘Rockies’ team-mate of Simon Zebo, but when asked whether any of the current Cork crop might fit the bill to follow the Racing 92 man’s former Munster team-mate Darren Sweetnam into professional sport, the former Hull City man suggested it would be a pointless pursuit unless they had sufficient skill in another field.
His father half-jokingly claimed during his recent stint as a footballing free agent that he could tog out for the Rebels if he got the +353-(21) phonecall, but Meyler was adamant that his career as a professional athlete alone would not suffice in seeing him succeed were he to put on a helmet and pull down his socks.
“You might have the athleticism,” he said. “I have the athleticism to play different sports, but do I have the skill?
I stopped playing hurling at 17 so I haven’t properly played hurling in 12 years. Yes, they are athletes; yes, they can compete, but it’s the next part that gets you to the top level. I’d imagine Sweetnam was probably continually playing hurling and rugby at the same time.
