Conditioned to look for consistency

ALL-IRELAND SHC QUALIFIERS:Carlow are not prepared to throw the towel in any more. Gavin Cummiskeytalks to manager Kevin Ryan, who says the team are 10 years evolving

THE PROGRESS of Carlow hurling is something worth peeking in on as they venture up to Belfast to play Antrim tomorrow. It could be the rip in the fabric of predictable results this weekend.

Winning in Casement Park is possible on the evidence of Carlow’s dismissal of Laois last Saturday and an encouraging National League Division Two campaign when they rattled Clare and stunned Wexford.

Victory would propel them into the next phase of the qualifiers, where they will be cast as easy fodder, but regardless of future results it would signify genuine progress for the current Christy Ring Cup holders.

“It has been educational enough season when you look at what we were at in Division Two of the National League and beating Laois,” claims manager Kevin Ryan.

Their current minor and under-21 sides have produced encouraging performances.

Ryan was installed as senior manager two years back having made his name with Mount Sion and Waterford. He surveyed the landscape and decided to get them hurling skilfully before complicating matters.

This season former Irish basketball coach Gerry Fitzpatrick was drafted in as coach, arriving with the respectable background of putting the Deise hurlers through their paces. A lecturer in sports psychology at WIT, Fitzpatrick is a useful man to have around.

“I worked away on hurling last year because that’s what I felt was needed,” explained Ryan. “Bring them on enough to win Christy Ring and then look to condition them. We didn’t have a lot of time so it was one or the other. This year we have been able to combine the two.

“They are not as liable to collapse when they are playing the better teams. If you are there physically with them it is easier to be there mentally with them. It goes hand in hand. So, we’re not just throwing the towel in any more. No matter who we are playing we keep going at it.”

This team, claims Ryan, is the product of 10 years of work behind the scenes with men like Tommy Mullally and Michael Walsh coming over the border from Kilkenny to provide expert assistance. Former players like Brendan Hayden and Johnny Nevin were installed as full-time coaches to help spread the gospel. There are others, as resources were put in place by the county board to build structures.

A lull in progress is probably inevitable but the underage teams, while not on the scale of Dublin hurling’s recent development, will continue to try to hold pace. “There is enough there to push at under-21 for the next year or two. Whatever about winning it, but to be competitive in it. I think they need to be competitive in A competitions as opposed to winning B competitions,” says Ryan.

“The players are there but it really depends on their willingness because they still don’t realise at this stage what it takes, what the Division One teams have always known.”

A rude awakening may come tomorrow but the hope is a team like Dublin or Clare will show them how far they need to go in the next round. Antrim though will provide an exact gauge of where they figure in the current pecking order.

“I saw them a couple of weeks back against Offaly. To me they were robbed, they had that game won. It’s a big step up for us, particularly going up to Casement Park to play it. I know we were close to them up there in the league but they hadn’t all their Cushendall players and Dunloy lads. We are there to be shot at.”

No great shakes, no revolution in Carlow hurling. Just quiet progress. First they improved the touch of sliotar to hurley then the conditioning work came on and some decent performances followed. Consistency is next. They know this – or at least they are about to find out.