Sure once you’ve won your first All-Ireland, you know the score.
Richie Power, James ‘Cha’ Fitzpatrick and Tommy Walsh were the alpha dogs down the back of Kilkenny’s team bus for many a year.
22 All -Ireland titles, 16 NHLs and 14 All Stars between them. You wouldn’t be arguing with them bossing it down the back anyway.
Jackie Tyrrell had a stack of personal and inter-county honours himself but the James Stephens’ clubman was happy enough with his spot on the Cats’ bus whenever they headed up to Dublin and Croke Park. Brian Hogan was pretty content too.
Tyrrell recalled a class story, on SportsJOE Live, about one Liam MacCarthy-winning trip up to Croker. He commented:
“I was sat five rows up from the back of the bus, on the left-hand side. I was always one of the quiet lads; I’d go into myself, listen to music and just chill out.
“Then you could hear Cha Fitzpatrick, Richie Power and Tommy Walsh down the back, cracking jokes. Then, maybe a couple of rows up, we’d only leave Kilkenny and be 10 or 15 minutes up the road and Brian Hogan would be asleep.
“I always remember Hogie slept all the way from our team hotel up to Dublin and Noel Skehan saying, ‘We’re playing an All Ireland and there’s a lad back there asleep!’
“That was just the different way lads dealt with it because, come game time, whether it was Tommy that was cracking a joke or Brian sleeping, they were ready to go. That was just their own characteristics and the way they dealt with the occasion… that’s what the group dynamic is all about.”
Diarmuid O’Sullivan [Cork] and Lar Corbett [Tipperary] also positioned themselves close to the back but also within “ear-wigging” distance of the manager. O’Sullivan says once he found his seat on the team bus, that was his seat for the next chunk of years.
“Yeah, you just get it into your head that, ‘That’s my seat’. You’d count them back to make sure.”
Corbett has fond memories of driving up towards Croke Park through the packed Dublin streets and recognising familiar faces from back home. “There was great energy and excitement about the place,” he says.
“I always used to look for a window seat as I didn’t listen to music or have headphones. I’d be looking out the window and though I didn’t salute everyone, you might cop someone you knew and give them a thumbs up. Something subtle but a nice moment.”
Lovely recollections from three hurling legends.
