Shane Williams came, he saw, he conquered.
He’s more modest to admit that but his four points in a Donegal storm for Glenswilly impressed locals, neutrals, and rugby heads maybe only half interested in the sport of Gaelic football.
After a week with Glenswilly, the Welsh legend had the sport sown up and it culminated in a 0-4 rout as he sported Michael Murphy’s number 14 jersey and did it glorious justice.
Michael Murphy's jersey? No bother to him https://t.co/bwW6pJB0PQ #GAA #Donegal #TheToughest
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) January 13, 2017
He did his due diligence. Before he made the trip to the north west to trade the oval ball with the O’Neill’s size five, he sought out Tommy Bowe’s advice on Gaelic Football.
When the first installment of AIB GAA’s #TheToughest Trade launches on Wednesday night, March 1 at 9.30pm on RTÉ 2, Shane Williams is going to look the part running around the hills kicking ball with the best of them.
But, by his own admission, it didn’t go as smoothly as the final cut might suggest.
#TheToughest Trade, where 2 former professionals and 2 amateurs trade places to see what life is like in the others boots/skates. Tap for 🔊 pic.twitter.com/cfNxnZpewa
— AIB_GAA (@AIB_GAA) February 20, 2017
In fact, it was a steep learning curve even for a professional sportsman of 14 years. It was a completely different culture and there were number of facets of it that Williams found toughest to adapt to.
1. Physicality
“Physically, it’s contact – I’ve been doing that for some time,” he explained.
“What I found quite bizarre is that I could be standing there waiting for the ball, rather than going to get the ball, and then someone would come next to me and just smash me off the ball.
“I’d be looking for the referee and they’d be like, ‘You’re allowed to do that.'”
2. Size of the pitch
“What you do have to get used to is the size of the pitch.
“You’re running a lot of that time not even touching the ball, just trying to find a bit of space. By the time you get the ball, you’re actually blowing, so little things like that that I learned from scratch really.”
3. Donegal weather
“I was up front, which I think was probably the right choice really – ‘get him out of the way and hopefully get the ball to him some time during the game and try and get him in front of goal.’
“It was okay, the game went alright, the conditions were the most bizarre conditions I’ve ever played in in my life. We had a bit of rain and it was a bit cold, but we went in and got changed, opened the door to go out for the game and I couldn’t see anything. It was just white, a blizzard of snow.
“I enjoyed it, I got to run around. Tough conditions, a lot of running involved. I didn’t expect it to be that tough in that respect. We had a great game and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.”
4. Parochialism
“The guy marking me, I tried a couple of times having a chat with him, but I don’t think he was having any banter. I think he was taking the game far more serious than I was.
“As the game went on, I think he got a little bit tired and we had a bit of a laugh and a joke afterwards, or during I suppose, saying, ‘We’ll have a beer after we’ve warmed up.’
“He definitely didn’t take it lightly on me. What I’ve found with these Gaelic footballers is they’re quite proud sportspeople. They don’t want anyone to get the better of them, as with any sport I suppose.
“Even though it’s an amateur game, they take it very seriously and almost play it professionally, and he definitely didn’t want me to have the better of him, that’s for sure. I had a couple of shoulders in the face and off-the-ball incidents, but as I was told in training, that’s part of the games. I literally took it on the chin, I suppose.”
5. Patience
“As a rugby player, I used to go looking for work, whether that be at the ruck or just talking to people to get me the ball. When you’re up front as a Gaelic footballer, you’ve got to run away from the ball almost. You’ve got to look for room – I think so anyway, I might be wrong – look for the space and then get your hands on the ball.
“I used to play a bit of football as a striker. I remember the coach telling me, ‘When you lose the ball up front, you’ve got to run back and help defend.’ As soon as I started running back in Gaelic football, the coaches on the sideline were shouting, ‘Woah, woah, stay there.’ All the players were shouting at me.
“Things like that, it’s just a completely different game. I really enjoyed it. I came off the field happy with what had happened on there. It was a good experience.”
6. Training
“We had three or four training sessions. From bits of fitness to actually playing the game, which was hard enough anyway. I couldn’t get over the amount of running you had to do in training.
“The pitch is a lot bigger so you are going to cover a lot more ground. That was a little shock to the system. We had an early morning weights session as well. I haven’t done anything like that since I finished playing rugby.”
7. Amateurism
When he wasn’t training, Williams was manning Michael Murphy’s store for him – learning all about what it was like to live in Donegal and play as an amateur.
“I just couldn’t get over the fact that these boys are amateur players and they were getting up at six o’clock to do weights sessions. They went to work and then came back and did a training session in the evening.
“It was good. At the end of the week, certainly, I was physically shattered. I knew I’d trained hard that week – physically and mentally, I suppose. I had so much going through my head.
“The coaches were taking me in a little room and they had all these little magnets on the board with the pitch. They were saying, ‘On our ball, I want you to go here and here and then here. There was a bit where he was doing this [crosses hands wildly] and I was like, ‘Will I just stay up front?’ They were like, ‘Yeah, you just stay up front. When we get the ball, you just run as fast as you can and hopefully, you can gas a few of the boys.'”
