We’re creatures of habit.
It may be the biggest game both Waterford and Galway’s hurlers will play in their entire lives, but they will prepare for it in the exact same way they would prepare any other one.
The best advice that any of these players could have gotten in the build-up to Sunday’s All-Ireland final is to play the game and not the occasion, to do what they always do, to be themselves, to hurl with freedom, to hurl with bloody abandon.
When the game is so competitive, when it boils down to the finest margins, a missed tackle, a hook, a block, a thought or a conviction inside a mans head, obviously, preparation is key.
Some players are rock-solid approaching a big game. They’re relaxed, cool and they just take it all in their stride.
They wont have any particular routine and they will do what just comes naturally to them. Game on.
Other lads might be deeper thinkers, some things work for them and some things don’t.
They will develop some sort of routine before games, a routine that settles them, that gives them peace of mind.
Waterford and Galway’s players will have been preparing last night, this morning and right now for this game, in their own way – some things weird, some things simple.
Waterford legend Paul Flynn recalled on Up for the Match how some of his teammates used to sleep in the bath, eat Mars bars to prepare.
It’s quirky, we’re individuals.
Waterford captain Kevin Moran was speaking to the Connacht Tribune during the week, and the De La Salle man revealed his fondness of a freezing cold shower, only on the eve of games.
“I never have cold showers, ever, except for the night before a game. I just have a really cold shower, as cold as I can take it for about five minutes. It makes me sleep better,” said Moran.
There’ll be other lads performing such routines right now in the respective dressing rooms.
That’s what settles the nerves.
It’s all in our heads.
