“I WON’T SAY the fun has gone out of it but in a way it might be seen to be lost.”
Tom Kenny has been around the block once or twice and there aren’t many better people to give you an insight into how hurling and its culture have changed in recent years.
Ten years ago when the Grenagh man made his inter-county debut, he rarely saw the inside of a gym; training diaries and recovery plans were a foreign notion.
The old way of doing things didn’t work for everyone but, around the the time Kenny was breaking through at senior level, it was certainly working for Cork. In his first four seasons with the Rebel hurlers, he won three provincial titles and two All-Irelands.
No wonder he was enjoying himself.
Creeping professionalism has changed hurling to a point where most players are “amateur” in name only now. Early-morning training sessions, strength and conditioning work, dietary lessons, video analysis and statistical breakdowns are all par for the course now, seen as a prerequisite for success.
“I still love playing hurling,” Kenny says as he looks ahead to tomorrow’s Munster hurling final against Limerick, “but some of the fun might be gone out of playing inter-county because there’s so much expected of players. They need to do X, Y and Z.
“It’d be good if some coaches just said, ‘Let’s go out and enjoy the game’, and had enthusiasm for the game. That’s what you need.
“It’s why I always say when I talk to youngsters, I tell them to have an enthusiasm for the game, that’s what it’s there for at the end of the day.”
There’s no shortage of youngsters to whom Kenny, who turns 32 next week, can pass on a few words of wisdom. Cork’s last shot at the provincial title was back in 2010 when they lost in the replay to Waterford and, of the 15 players who started that day, only five now remain.
Rather than wilt under the pressure and expectation of winning, his advice is to relax.
I know it’s a Munster final, but you’re still going out playing a game that you were playing in the back garden when you were a young fella running around the place. That’s what you have to think about in the back of your mind when you’re playing the game as well.It’s very easy for me to say now that you just have to go and play the game, but if you detach yourself from having to perform and having to win and just playing — catching the ball, striking the ball, getting scores on the run, whatever it is — I think you’ll enjoy it more.
That’s just my point of view. You kind of just have to see the enjoyment side of it too.
If anything, he says, it’s the elder statesmen like himself that will be affected by the nerves.
“Funnily enough, it’s kind of ironic in that I feel as you get older you get more nervous because you’re thinking about it more.
“In your first Munster final, you’re thinking, ‘This is great, it’s the Munster final, let’s get out and play’. While Jimmy [Barry-Murphy, Cork manager] and the lads will be telling the players what to do, some of it will go in subconsciously but then you’re wanting to go and play. That goes back to my point earlier that it’s good for them to be in a Munster final and experience the enjoyment of it.
“As you get older, you feel a bit more nervous and your stomach would be churning but that’s a good sign too when you’re nervous.”
