One Moment

Sitting in Bar 13, just off Union Square in New York a couple of weeks ago, I was wondering how one could convey the importance of training your balls off to win something and the joy you get from its reward.

I harp on painfully about committment and sacrifcing the sacrificable during the year to try and achieve success on the pitch. The conclusion I came to at the end of last year was that too many of those on the Championship team either thought they were better than they were and didn't need to train that hard or didn't value the feeling from winning as much as I do. Whichever reason it is, it can be backed up by evidence in the form of lack of Championship tournament wins and training attendance figures.

So you wonder how to relate the importance of it all to fellas. Inspiration came from the 2-for-1 happy hour deal in the deserted bar where we occupied two stools and tried to drain some banter from the not unattractive barmaid. Then it came to me. What gave guys the most satisfaction and greatest sense of achievement in 2010? Aside from marriage, births or significant occassions which may only happen a handful of times in your life.

I gaurantee if most fellas pinpoint a moment, it will have been on some pitch somewhere in Europe. It may stretch back as far as January, when they went home exhausted after one of the pre-season physicals and lay on the couch happy in the knowledge they dropped every bead of sweat onto the pitch in the BSB.

More than likely it will have been at some tournament though. The Championship team's run in Benelux threw up successive moments. What about when the Shield team won that game against Lux down in Lux? Or when both groups came together to win The Nation's Cup. Maybe up in The Hague when we struggled to field a team but ground out a great victory. Maybe it was the moments just after the final whistle, in the dressing room after or in the car on the way home. Maybe it was at 5am the following morning after teasing out all the day's action with your teammates and finally having a moment to enjoy the achievement on your own.

It could have been anyone of those things and I'm pretty convinced that when guys reflect on their best moments of the year, one of those will rise to the top. So why not work hard to achieve that feeling as often as possible. Maybe guys take it for granted and fall away into the comfort zone, knowing training is a nice facility to have there when they want it. However, within a week of it ending, everyone is pining for it again, in a way that wasn't evident days previously.

As for my moment, I'm not sure. Hurling wise, The Hague tournament was up there. I think it was a moment down in Zurich though when we had a long distance free to give us the insurance point though. It was p1ssing rain and there wasn't a dry ball in all of Switzerland. Except the one in Martin Crowley's bag. Out it came and the ball sailed over the bar. It seems small but I get great satisfaction playing with fellas who are always looking to get an edge and Martin was tuned into that. He held that ball all day, for just such a moment.

Football wise, it was probably the Lux tournament. They'd won it something like ten years in a row. We gave our most convincing performance of the year in the final against The Hague. Enda commented afterwards that we looked like we were getting stronger and stronger as the final progressed. It was satisfying on two counts. First, all the work on the training pitch was brought out and secondly, I'd stood in as captain for the day as Eoin managed the Shield team. Making those Hague lads listen to me for a few more minutes when we received the cup didn't do any of them any harm (although they seemed to show that later in year!)!