Inter-county players are flat to the mat right now.
This could be one of the most intense seasons they’ve ever had. They’re navigating their way through a busy League schedule, as they always are at this time of the year, but there’s a bit more to it this time around.
Because as well as competing and then recovering from National League games, there’s a championship to think about and, coming down the tracks faster than ever before, it’s only six weeks away now.
So pre-season has been fast and it’s been furious – in other years it would have lasted longer – and there’s games coming Sunday after Sunday. Players want games, it has to be said, and you won’t find many complaining about a weekly schedule, but it does mean that the training diaries are a bit busier and a bit more condensed and in Waterford, as much as anywhere else, the players are feeling it.
Conor Prunty went off with a hamstring injury during their win over Tipperary on Sunday which adds to Jamie Barron’s quad injury and Calum Lyons’ hip trouble. Elsewhere, both Tom Phelan and Cian Kenny seemed to strain hamstrings for Kilkenny in their win over Dublin while for Limerick, Declan Hannon went off injured with a hamstring injury against Clare – a game Kyle Hayes missed because of a hamstring pinch in training.
“We’ve had a string of them over the past few weeks,” said Cahill.
“The medics have been fairly busy but that’s because of the volume of work.
“It is tough on players, they’re massively committed, going from training to matches to recovery to matches. The workload is immense and it’s for every team.
“There’s a good strength and conditioning team here in Waterford that are on top of all that. Without them we’d be getting a lot of things wrong, I know I would anyway because the manager’s nature is always to drive, drive, drive and if you’re injured then shake it off and go but sometimes, you can’t do that because of the volume of work and how finely tuned they are so it’s very high risk at times,” he added.
The risk amplifies, of course, when the fields are soggier and damper and that might explain why, after the storms and showers of the last few weeks, a whole load hamstrings and quads are acting up.
“It’s enjoyable as well having a game every week,” added Cahill.
“They love hurling and they love training hard during the week for a game at the weekend so it has its positives and negatives.”
Another positive for Waterford was the return of Mikey Mahony, his brother Pauric and Ian Kenny after their recent win with Ballygunner and, in showing how hard Waterford are training, Cahill says that the boys didn’t find it easy when they came back in initially. In fairness, given the power and tenacity they brought to Walsh Park on Sunday, you could see that the training is paying off.
“It’s brilliant. You can’t beat winning and having five of these guys in around you, it’s superb. You’d have loved to have had them in sooner after the All-Ireland win and in fairness they were back into it in 10 days. But there is a big difference between county and club – and Ballygunner are at the very top of the club game.”
Mikey Kiely was told, in no uncertain terms, to move his f*cking feet after dilly-dallying out by the line while, after hitting wide balls, Jack Prendergast and Neil Montgomery heard something similar.
Liam Cahill was up for this and so were Waterford.https://t.co/nIUhwi6q3w
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) March 6, 2022
“But they’re getting there and it was great to get some game time into two or three of them today. We look forward to having them all back for Nowlan Park in two weeks time.”
Six weeks time is the big one though, when they host Tipperary again, and Cahill is hoping for more of the same.
“That’s really important for this group of players and me. Having the great Waterford support there today was superb. I’m hoping in six weeks time that they’ll pack this place to the rafters.”
