Championship

To understand, you need to have experienced the build up, the anticipation, the excitement and the anxious nerves which come with the run in to Championship. Preparations usually conclude two or max three days prior to the main event. However, from a week or so out, you'll be speculating on the selection with your teammates, fielding questions from the locals and gathering some of their opinions too!!

You can be sure that the build-up won't go without hitch. Suspensions and injury concerns can let doubt creep in if not managed properly. There will be lads not togged at the final sessions as they buy some recovery time. For every one of them there will be a couple more sweating on their places. Assuming you have navigated past or through back doors the enormity of the consequences of defeat preys on your mind. It would bring a shuddering halt to your summer, whilst victory could potentially catapult you to the places of your dreams.

In the preceeding days you will look after yourself like a professional. Sleep, hydration, diet all to the fore. Anything interfering with your pattern will be scoffed at. The productivity of those at work will take a sharp decline. Students will be trying to stay out of the sun, not frazzle their mind too much on the playstation and generally try and stay out of harms way.

As you prepare to pack your bag the day of the match, your focus has narrowed. All that occupies your thoughts are getting your game right; beating your man and supporting your teammates in their tasks. Big guy, small guy...fast or slow...tricky or direct. You will be hatching a plan for each, running through the different scenarios you may find yourself in. Your parents will have lived through the mood swings that come with the week of Championship and be very glad to see you out the door.

Over in the field lads will be spread in different pockets, some serious, some more relaxed. Everyone will be eager to get their hands on the ball. Again, you can sense the focus and steely determination that grips the group. Often they will be called into the dressing room for a brief chat and to name the team. Some will be disappointed that they haven't got the nod, others elated. Once the job is done, all will filter out, bottle of water in hand, to fill the cars and head to the venue.

Sometimes you will arrive to a curtain raiser so maybe the warm-up is at a nearby pitch. The team goes through its warm-up rituals as silence descends on the group. The occasional yelp of encouragement can be heard from those who can't contain it. The handling and striking is fine tuned, the confidence in the touch rubber stamped. Back to the main venue and there is still time to kill. Players will peer out at the preceeding game from windows and door steps. Inside the dressing room you hear balls rebounding of the shower room walls, muscles getting the final slaps in a rub down, rolls of tape unravelling and the can of deep heat doing its thing. This is probably the toughest moment as players become concerned about the gap between the warm-up and the throw in, about any imperfections in the pitch or unfavourable weather conditions.

Then the seconds tick down and you are huddled together, alone for the final time with your teammates and the captain's voice for company. He drills in his message, the players knit tightly together. The referee's impatient whistle is the signal to break open the door and release the men and the unmistakable clatter of studs on concrete and approval of the crowd.

The next hour or so will swing from end to end on the playing field and in the emotional stakes. There will be balls won and lost, great acts of bravery and uncharacteristic errors. When the final whistle goes, all those acts will be summed up and on the balance sheet there will be one winner. For those, the gate to the autumn has crept open further. For the losers, they will lie on the idled field wallowing in defeat. Their summer is over. Many months in the doldrums await until they can relaunch their assault. Its a totally devastating feeling. There will be an irreplacable hole to fill through the new year.

I watched a selection of these scenes unfold this week as I ventured home for a few days. In this case, I was watching my old teammates fall to defeat and I can feel the disappointment that must run through them. As I walked out of the ground my eye was drawn to the gap in the dressing room door and my ear tuned into the silence which engulfed the room. Its a morbid place to be. It is of little consolation to them that they are lucky just to be able to contest the battles. The time will come when they are not and that will leave a greater hole than any defeat.