Different strokes for different folks.
Some of us are a big bag of nerves in the build-up to a game. We cultivate a swarm of butterflies in the pits of our stomach, we think about what’s going to happen, we over-think, we can’t stop thinking.
Others, they’re as cool as a cucumber. They bounce into the dressing room with swagger and nonchalance, without having a passing thought about the various permutations and possibilities for the 70 minutes ahead of them.
At the end of it all, both lads might play to their peak, both lads might play stink, but in reality what they did or what went through their mind on game day mightn’t even matter, because, eventually, you get used to your own little habits and learn to control them.
The Kilkenny hurling team in the Brian Cody era were surely one of the most invincible teams to have formed ever in the GAA, with their 11 Liam MacCarthy’s over fifteen hurling Championships.
You might have thought that these lads all had a programmed routine and focus with regard to build-up to the game, that they’d have a routine and be unflappable in their preparation.
Jackie Tyrrell, who donned the black and amber of Kilkenny for many years, revealed that it was a free-for-all on the team bus. Each man was to his own ways as they prepared for the biggest of games.
“I always sat about five seat back on the right. I would have been one of the quiet people, I would have sat by myself, listened to music, chilled out and stuff like that.
“Then you’d hear Tommy Walsh, James ‘Cha’ Fitzpatrick and Richie Power and them lads would be cracking jokes behind.
Some were sleeping, some were chilled out, others were in the zone and some were laughing and joking without a care in the world.
“Then a couple of seats up, I always remember Brian Hogan, we might only be ten minutes out of Kilkenny but Hogie would be asleep. He slept from the hotel into the game. I remember in the earlier thinking, ‘we’re going to play an All-Ireland and there’s a lad back there who’s asleep.’
“That was just the different ways lads dealt with it because come game time, whether Tommy Walsh was cracking a joke or Brian Hogan was asleep, they were ready to go, and that was just their own characteristics and how they dealt with it.
“I’d love to be able to sleep on a bus, but I wouldn’t be able to,” revealed the James Stephens club man during Wednesday evening’s SportsJOE Live.
You can have a listen to Tyrrell’s interesting insight from SportsJOE Live right here from 31″00′.
