IF KIDS HAVE the week before Christmas then hurlers have the week before championship, a time of excitement, tension and near obsessional focus.
Christmas morning normally goes well for kids, whereas for us the outcome is far from certain. But that’s another day’s problem.
As you count down your world gets smaller, your thoughts narrowed on this date, circled months ago, the justification for all you’ve done in the meantime: training, travelling, gym, recovery, repeat.
People that typically walk past you on the street say “best of luck Sunday”, the odd flag goes up around the place and the air temperature climbs as if in sync with the overall feeling.
There’s a general trend to training in the couple of weeks before championship, and how people behave therein goes to show their place in the pecking order. When I first got into the Cork panel I was throwing myself around the goals in the days leading up to the big day, trying to make as many saves as possible, desperate to be noticed. By the time you’re starting regularly you don’t want to get hurt. A point-blank save on a Tuesday night is not worth missing the Munster championship opener.
The pecking order is also evident in A v B games. These will often take place on the Saturday week before throw-in, eight days out. They can typically by two 30-minute halves, or on occasion four 15 minute quarters if the management team wants to give us more instruction or seek feedback.
One potential conflict is how the Bs are treated. Is this a genuine chance for them to force their way into the starting XV? In most cases the answer will be, of course, yes, but sometimes the Bs can be set-up to mimic the opposition. This is clearly helpful to the As but too much of such an approach could get disheartening for the Bs, who need to feel more investment in the project than being role players.
As a result we never went big on replicating the opposition, and often didn’t play A v B at all, but instead mixed the teams up.
We did always try to simulate the opposition when preparing to face Derek McGrath’s Waterford, who played with more men in deeper positions.
Probably the most valuable A v B we had was down in Clonakilty before we played Tipperary in the 2017 Munster quarter-final. The Bs beat us comprehensively, bettered us in every aspect of play and attitude. It was a wake-up call, without which we wouldn’t have won on Sunday, before eventually winning Munster.
A v B games in general are a bit of a mission for starting goalkeepers. You’re against forwards who are switched on to your puckouts and who have every incentive to stand out – and the best way of doing this is naturally to score goals.
These games are usually full intensity for the first half, before they ease up towards the end. The best teams, Kilkenny of 2006-15 and Limerick now would be well known for their exacting A v B games, the extraordinary strength of their players pushing for a starting spot helps towards this.
There are a thousand variations to this, but the A v B game usually fits into the pattern of intense training three weeks out, a mixture of skills and hard work two weeks from game day followed by a tapering down of intensity in the week of the build-up. Sessions here can often be glorified versions of the warm-ups you’d see before throw-in.
We’d never stay overnight for any away trip in Munster. We’d get the bus up and arrange to have our pre-match meal and puck around at a club near the ground. We were given a welcome by the likes of Holycross Ballycahill near Thurles and Na Piarsaigh in Limerick for this.
The bus from Cork up was pure craic. You see the different types of characters here, some lads are so relaxed they can go to sleep, Timmy McCarthy when I first started out and the likes of Alan Cadogan and Seamus Harnedy in later years.
I was drawn to the back of the bus and the slagging being led by the city lads, especially northsiders such as Patrick Horgan, Stephen McDonnell, Christopher Joyce and Graham Callanan in earlier years. Someone like Hoggie might seem cleancut, but he’d cut you in two with a comment. They all would.
The likes of myself and Lorcán McLoughlin, up from Kanturk, would be getting the brunt of it. Plenty of questions about whether we were able to find parking for the tractor and if we had the bootcut jeans and checkered shirts packed for the night out afterwards. It was funnier the way they said it!
One day Lorcán shot back at Stephen with a good one, but what sticks in my mind wasn’t his one-liner, more the fact that he followed it up with “I’m only joking”. I’m only joking! Macky would be tearing him to pieces without a second thought but Lorcán felt his conscience pang for hitting back. Too much country decency in Lorcán!
Any shy or sensitive lads learnt to leave their feelings at the door early on, but that’s not as cruel as it may sound. There was never any undercurrent of meanness. You’d have groups within the groups, the young lads, the older lads, the quiet fellas who found easy company in each other, but everybody got on. There was a deep bond, really, and I’m sure it’s the same in every panel.
I miss playing at the top level, but what really makes me nostalgic for the recent past is that big group of friends with a common purpose. Sometimes we were the furthest thing from serious in our manner but we were when it mattered.
Things quietened down on the bus from the meal and puck around to the ground. This is when you’re alone with your thoughts and the nervous energy rises. Over time you learn to channel these emotions positively, but I can’t say my final approach to the games was alway the most scientific.
Liam Griffin speaks about Wexford’s 1996 All-Ireland final and the traffic light system his players followed. You’re on red in the dressing room, keep the revs counter low. Amber in the late stages of the warmup and then green once the ball is thrown in. There’s no sense in spending energy charging down the tunnel and out into the light with the roar rising all around you.
But I couldn’t resist. Brian Hurley, my goalkeeping coach, would warn me I’d pull my hamstring. But I’d have to take that energy from the crowd and run with it. After the anthem I’d leap up and down to get the blood moving again, and I’d relish the dash towards the wall of red on the Cork end as I inhaled the atmosphere. You’d even enjoy trotting into Tipp end where the insults would be flying your way. It’s all part of the show that we’re fortunate to be part of.
Once the game starts it’s amazing how quickly the mind zones out everything loud and colourful on the periphery. You’re in another place then, one of 30 players lost to the contest, everything you have sunk into the here and now. If it’s mindfulness you’re after then I can’t think of a better way to get it.
It’s not really possible for players who will take to the field this weekend to fully appreciate what they have as they’re too much in the throes of it now. Yet you’d still hope they can take it all in as much as possible, because this is life at its most meaningful and vivid.
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