Déise men prepare for journey of a lifetime

MOSTLY HURLING:Ever wondered what the morning and afternoon of an All-Ireland hurling final was like for a player. Well read on, writes John Allen.

WELL, WITH little over a week to go ahead of the most important event in the hurling calendar, it's time to attempt to paint a picture of sorts of the hours preceding the battle for the Déise men.

The travelling team (Waterford) arrive at their hotel on the Saturday evening. The champions (Kilkenny) don't travel until Sunday morning so their routine is as per usual which is the ideal scenario.

As we all know it can be difficult to sleep when the mind is preoccupied. Bringing your own pillow to the hotel mightn't be a bad idea. The lobby is out of bounds until the business is taken care of later the following day. The foyer in the team hotel on the Saturday night before the final is much like Jones' Road will be shortly after five on Sunday evening; chock-a-block would be an understatement.

The rumour mill is usually on overdrive. "I heard from a very reliable source that Eoin Kelly is sick and very doubtful" or "Ken (we don't need to use his surname) broke his small finger at the last training session but it's all been hushed up" etc, etc.

This pre-match soiree is a who's who of past greats, politicians, die-hard fans, captains of industry, wannabes, posers, movers and shakers and general hangers-on. It's the place to be for the Waterford diaspora on this particular Saturday in Dublin.

But the players aren't there and if they are they shouldn't be. Some might be at the cinema or the dog track or in the team room.

This multi-functional team room, will, over the following 24 hours, be used as a church for mass, a cinema, a therapy room, a surgery, a restaurant and a meeting area.

It will have the television and the DVD player, possibly a data projector and screen, a flip chart, the fridges for the water and the sports drinks, chairs for the pre-match meeting, the masseurs' tables. Most importantly it will be away from the madding crowd.

Finally the Sunday they've waited almost half a century for dawns. The foyer has returned. The people are gone. The players have to have breakfast before nine. Lunch is three hours before throw-in and the players are well aware of best practice, or should I say current best practice, on nutrition and hydration, because no doubt that will change. So they stick rigidly to the meal times. The Cork team of 1976 dined on mini steaks an hour and a half before throw-in and won. This would be frowned upon now.

It's back to the rooms or maybe out for a walk or a puck-around. The Cork hurlers, over the past few years, used to go for a walk in the leafy suburb that surrounds the Burlington Hotel. A sense of fun always permeated as the players arrived glad to be getting back with the full group again.

Then it was out the side door. Some players brought their comfy blanket (hurley). A sliotar always mysteriously appeared. But fun used to be king for that time anyway.

The pre-match meal time is now set in stone so as a half an hour past midday arrives it's back to the dining room.

The pasta with the tomato dressing and the skinless chicken, the salad without the dressing, the low-fat yoghurts, the rolls, the brown bread, the Benecol spread and much more are all laid out buffet style.

Soon it's almost game-face time. Everybody heads to the team room for the all-important last meeting. The manager has to soon set the tone for the day or maybe I should say he has to try to bring all the pieces together in an effort to refocus everybody. For him it's getting into character in an effort to deliver a speech which has taken a week to script. But whatever about the words, the delivery is everything.

A lifetime spent in the classroom for this particular ex-bainisteoir leaves one with a firm didactic tone of someone used to being heard but not certain of being listened to all the time. Today (in Waterford's case) the new boss has to ensure that he is both listened to and heard.

It's now less than two hours to game time. The team room is like the night market in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It's alive. Every corner is being used. The masseurs are at full throttle, some players are in deep concentration in their iPod world.

Spare hurleys are being gathered and organised in bundles. The backroom staff are busy moving drinks, hurleys, and gear to the bus. Sliotars are whizzing like scud missiles across this limited space. The medics are tending to the long-term wounded, administering plasters and bandages. The ghetto blaster pounds out the up-tempo war music.

Soon it's time to leave the sanctuary of the hotel in suburban Dublin to head across town to where over 80,000 souls await the modern-day Irish gladiators who are almost ready to battle to the death to bring home hurling's greatest prize.

No matter how often we made this journey, it still made the hairs on the neck stand to attention. The garda outriders are in place. Everybody is on board the bus. Nobody speaks for the entire journey. The war music is on. The tension and concentration is etched on the faces of these sportsmen. The sirens shriek and the journey begins.

What a powerful feeling.

Cosmopolitan Dublin looks and wonders. Traffic lights are for ordinary citizens but not for these warriors. With blue lights flashing, they speed to hurling's biggest occasion. As the bus nears the stadium the rival colours are everywhere. They've left multi-ethnic Ireland behind. They're back among their own. There's always a genuine outpouring of appreciation evident on the street for these heroes.

The bus pulls in at the back of the Cusack Stand. The Croke Park official boards. They head slowly into the bowels of the stadium. On our bus The Wolfe Tones' Celtic Symphony (the final piece of battle music) came to an end (always perfectly timed by Jim McEvoy, the sound technician) as the dressing area comes into sight. The TV cameras wait. Micheál Ó Muirceartaigh and Ger Canning are at the head of the waiting privileged press group. "Any last-minute changes?"

The word Port Láirge will sit proudly on one dressingroom door, a door which they will use again a few hours later as they head for the players' lounge where both autopsy and coronation will begin poste haste.