It’s All-Ireland final day but Kyle Hayes isn’t feeling too much pressure.
He’s never been one to struggle with nerves before games.
His routines help to keep him calm, to keep him distracted.
He has a pre-match running order that has served him well in the past, before intermediate club games for Kildimo-Pallaskenry and before big championship days in the green and white of Limerick.
He swears by it now and it’s not going to change on All-Ireland final day. It’s almost a crutch for him at this stage and it allows him to treat the biggest game of his life as just another day out.
His rituals begin well before game day.
Over the days leading up to the final, he’s carried out his plan with military precision and that helps him relax.
He’s busied the barbers for his pre-match championship haircut. He’s travelled to the sanctuary of DJ Daly’s hurley making work-shop, and he’s picked up two new wands for the big day.
He’s sat on the same seat, beside Pat Ryan on the team bus on the way to the match and now he’s sitting in the quiet dressing room a while before throw-in.
Waiting can be the worst part. Over-thinking things is pointless and needlessly wastes energy.
Hayes keeps himself busy.
When everything and everyone is quiet in the dressing room before a game, he’s putting a new grip on his hurl. Partly because he likes the feel of a fresh one and it helps with his striking in the game. Partly because it busies his mind for a while.
“It’s only small little things really to pass away the time. Even with the club, yeah, I still do (re-grip my hurl for every game). Championship games, friendlies I wouldn’t,” he told us of his re-gripping habit on Tuesday at a PwC event.
“In the dressing-room you have 15 minutes to kill so it’s just another little thing to do, tick a box, and you kill five minutes.”
He’s out on the pitch for the warm-up. He pucks a few balls over the bar, he knows his plan for the game, he’s ready. He’s also relaxed because of it.
“I know my role every day I go out hurling, I know certain jobs that i have to do, especially with Limerick. You have a role and I played that role,” he said.
His first port-of-call in the game itself is to go looking for contact, to go looking for a hit. It gets him going.
“It just kind of wakes you up. I know you do small little drills beforehand, but it’s not the same as the real match, like.
“That’s what I find personally works. Any bit of contact at all, and I’m kind of switched on then and in the battle.”
He gets his hit in, and then he’s flying to four points from play and a man of the match in an All-Ireland final.
A wily old head on young shoulders, Hayes has maturity beyond his years. He’s favourite to be Young Hurler of the Year this year, and if he stays going as he is now, there’ll be plenty more success down the line too.
“Look, every day I go out I’ll always 100 per cent. It doesn’t really matter what age you are these days, there’ll probably be 18/19 year olds playing soon.”
That routine is a key part of it.
“I’d be kind of superstitious. It’s just kind of a routine that you have everything down bang, bang bang. I don’t even know how I started, to be honest. I probably started it one day and I played well in that match and then from then on I was saying, right, I have to do this and this and this again.
And now he has it down to a tee.
A fascinating insight into how a modern day inter-county player prepares for the big day.
Kyle Hayes of Limerick, was on hand to help launch the new PwC All Stars App and pick up his All-Ireland final man-of-the-match award.
The event took place at PwC on Spencer Dock in Dublin.
