Some things are just irreplaceable.
You can watch a ball drift agonisingly wide, you can ship a ferocious belt to the shin, you can even spend the day sitting on the bench, but you don’t know true heartbreak until you break your hurl.
It may take weeks, it may take months or even years, it could be love at first grip, but when you strike a bond with your camán, and it becomes the moneymaker, you really won’t be able to look at another stick the same way again
The weight, the shape, the bás, the touch, the strike. Everything. It becomes an extension of your arm and one that just feels right every time you take hold of it.
Hurling is a combative game, and we do have to put our 30 something inch weapons through the wars, so there’s always a high likelihood that they might… you know, break.
Jesus, it hurts to even say it.
Here are the feelings that only hurlers will be familiar with, when the number one splits in half.
1. Dressing room realisation
Hits you like a car. You ask the hurley man if he’s seen the other half of your hurl, desperately clinging to the hope that your club’s resident hurley fixer can work his magic. If they can, then lucky you.
But if the split is too high up then it’s a tragic, upsetting, whirlwind period that will cut much, much deeper than any injuries from the match.
Half of it is stuck in the dressing room bin, the other half out on the battlefield. That’s tough.
2. Flashbacks
May last days, weeks, months. The breaking-up of a relationship doesn’t compare to this.
May hit you at any given moment, out of the blue.
You recall the beautiful strikes that flew off the bás, the touch that killed a ball stone dead. Then you remember moment when it cracked in your own hands. Nobody deserves that.
3. Hope kills
It’s the hope that builds us up, that sustains us, that kills us.
“Surely they will be able to put a bit of glue and a band on this bad boy and give her a new lease of life. I always wanted a plate on my hurl anyway.” There’s no fixing if she’s cracked down the middle, boss, but logic is clouded by hope, by desperation.
4. False second comings
Sometimes it doesn’t come back the same.
It could be glued, sanded and banded but then there’s a new weight, a new feel, a new touch.
The worst thing then is that when finally come to terms with those subtle nuances, that she crumbles under any sort of pressure again.
5. Same hurley-maker, size, style… no
This guy made that before, he nailed it. All he has to do is the exact same thing again and then we’re back in business.
You soon discover it’s impossible to recreate perfection.
6. Moving on
New hurl. New me. It’s not easy. You can’t prepare for this, but you’re going to have to grim and bear it. We’ll be with you every step of the way!
