The GAA is a team game, but games are won by the performances of individuals.
The first task of each individual on a team is to make damn sure they get the better of the man they’re marking.
If you can do that much, well, you’re not doing too bad.
Yourself and your marker always have a special bond – a bond that will be dominated by hatred for the guts of seventy minutes.
Your marker, no matter where you’re playing, is like a bad smell, you just can’t seem to shake them off.
In fairness, there’s a lot in common between you and your marker – ye’re both mad things fighting for the one little ball, you’d do anything to get one over on the other fella.
There’s nothing worse than when that lad your marking gets one over on you – my God.
Throughout the course of the seventy minutes, ye’ll tussle, ye’ll hit, ye’ll hassle, ye might even talk.
1 – Best of luck – You don’t mean that, you hope he plays shite and you get all the glory.
2 – ‘How’d ye get on in the last round?’ – In reality, you couldn’t give a continental whether they got bet out the proverbial gate, or won by a country mile. – you just want that bloody ball.
3 – ‘Do you know what’s wrong with him?’ – A player gets injured at the other end of the pitch – your marker has been up your arse since you can remember. How the hell would he know better than you if a lad forty yards away from the two has twisted his ankle or pulled his hammy.
4 – ‘Warm today isn’t it’ – You’re both sweating buckets, he’s standing right beside you, he knows it’s warm.
5 – ‘Will you stop running so much?’ He’s hardly going to say, ‘Okay, sorry about that’
6 – ‘Giz a sup of that will you?’ – This is fair. The waterboy runs in from the sideline to offer your opponent a drink, you’re out on your feet, you’re gasping. The only thing your thinking is ‘where in God’s name are my lazy waterboys?’
7 – ‘Yeah, have a look at the scoreboard there, good lad’ – It’s getting proddy, tensions are rising between you and your man. He gives you a belt on the hand and you’re as thick as a briar. Still winning the game though.
8 – ‘Are ye missing many today?’ – Give is a break will you. If they are missing any lads, you certainly don’t want to know about it. You want to feel good Bout yourself.
9 – ‘Best of luck in the next round’ – if you don’t say this, well then you’re abit of a dickhead aren’t you?
10 – ‘Hard luck’ – you’re delighted you bet the fecker.
When all is said and done, when the battle is lost and won, the beauty of the game is that when the you finish the game, and you cross back over the four white lines of the field – You’ve loads of respect for that man again.
