Tough or just plain pointless.
Training can be a slog. Some Friday evenings we’re just not up for it and some Sunday mornings we might as well be still in bed.
When you don’t want to be there, there’s no worse place in the world you want to be because everything is going to be a struggle.
We all go to training to improve ourselves. It’d be easier to stay at home in front of the television but there’s a championship to be won this year. You’ve ground to make up on lads and you’re ready for the battle.
Coaches won’t make it easy on you. That’s their job. They’re trying to build your mental strength and the best way to do that is to make you do something that you don’t want to do.
Here are the hurling drills that none of us want to do. Ever.
1. Rise and back again
Start at the endline. Run out to the 21. Rise the sliotar along the way. Drop it. Run around the cone. Rise again.
Come on.
2. Hooking and blocking
The intentions are good but it never, ever works out.
You know that set-up where two lads jog down the field with one in front of the other. The lad in the front pretends to strike the ball, the lad behind gets in a hook.
It’s so unrealistic and lacks so much intensity. The lad who’s leading the line might as well be doing nothing because his swing is only half hearted. Both of them are bored to death.
Just imagine there was actually no sliotar in this photo.
But there were no blocks the last day so it has to be done.
3. Tackle bags
Just a nightmare.
The big lads take pride in this one. They burst out from the line and head like a bull chasing a matador towards the bag holder. They’ll crease you with a shoulder and the worst of all is that those bags are like a piece of paper when they come under pressure.
They’re no good to you and you’ll be left on your arse and then everyone will be wondering what’s wrong with you.
Don’t get us started on the right technique to hold them.
4. Indoor wall ball
30 lads packed into a little hall belting rubber balls off a wall. Hurls swinging in every direction, tough lads not wearing their helmets and heads nearly being taken off.
You go to control a ball and you take a strike to the back from the lad in the line next to you.
You strike a ball too hard and you’re taking your life in your own hands going through an obstacle course trying to retrieve it.
5. In/out hand passing five yards apart
Know it’s only a warm-up drill but it’s a boring one and it doesn’t even get the eye in at all.
6. High ball thrown up between two lads from five yards
Cue plenty of flaking.
One lad pulls, the other lad goes to catch. It breaks down to the ground and there’s no winner. It’s tough to really psyche yourself up for it too because it’s not the same buzz catching a floating lobber as a sliotar that’s been pinged from the hurley’s sweet spot.
It’s even hard to set yourself up for the leap anyway because everything’s so tight.
7. Two lads in middle fighting for possession
One player at either sideline. They ping it in between the two lads who compete for possession.
It’s never won cleanly and you end up at the other end of the pitch chasing failed pick-ups and flicks away.
And then you’ve to go again 30 seconds later while suffering severe oxygen debt.
Meant to look like this.
Looks like this.
8. Ground hurling only
Come on.
9. Diagonal striking to the hand on a wet day
One of the toughest drills out there to perfect. Your target is moving but always at a different pace. It’s next to impossible to nail it to their left hand.
When it’s raining it’s even worse.
When balls are being dropped the tension rises.
It ends in disaster more often than not.
