Johnny GAAHero: Hunger for success means eating to win

As a show of support to the new management I decided to travel home for the first couple of mid-week sessions. One of our county lads asked me for a lift as far as the Kilmore, so I found myself double parked outside his apartment trying to call his number. They were having a players' meeting and apparently one of the selectors had a function in O'Neill barracks afterwards. After 15 minutes of waiting, he strolled out nonchalantly and hopped into the car without a greeting or an apology. Like many young GAA players, he wore a designer hoodie, black gloves, county tracky bottoms, a pair of white Adidas runners and had blonde highlights in his hair. There was also a sweet whiff of man perfume in the car. Standing at six feet in his socks, this fella was the great white hope of our parish. It occurred to me that if you put him standing toe-to-toe with a Cavan footballer from the 30's, there's a fair chance he'd get asked for an aul shift. When we eventually got through the worst of the traffic he reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of stuff which smelled a lot like chocolate milkshake. "Need to keep loading the protein," he explained gravely. "I gave it welly last night in the gym; squats, cleans and dead lifts. You have to make the weights a religion if you want to match theTyrones and Antrims of this world." What a warrior. The county man pipes up again. "Pull in to that filling station," he says, "I need to pick up some water and fruit." Jayzus, I was already running late. Guantanamo was taking us for club training and I could have done without the extra laps and family insults. Turning up late was a sure way of being reacquainted with your dinner. "G'wan pull in! 'Ask not what your county can do for you' and all that. This here body is a temple and needs minding. I won't be a sec..." says my passenger. Again, I was supposed to be impressed but I had seen him in Copper Faced Jack's the previous Sunday night, leppin' around to Dolly Parton numbers and slurping pints of Fat Frog, god love him. That "temple" of his could got fairly rough treatment on college nights. Then again, I had admire the level of commitment and training it took to play inter-county football these days; the poor lad had probably been detoxing and punishing himself in the gym all week. "Sorry about that. There was a bit of a queue... Crisp?" To be continued...