HE'S COUNTY:A warts and all diary from inside the camp

IT’S A simple equation really. Take a manager, somehow let his team reach the nose-bleed stages of the championship, and see how he reacts. Guess how he reacts? Yep, got it in one: he Brings Someone in to Talk to the Team. And not someone from our gene pool – not Larry Tompkins or Wee Peter. Oh no, our man thinks outside the small box, as he says himself.

Thursday night, let’s all be upstanding for one of Ireland’s greatest sporting legends, blah de blah, and enter BOD. If there’s one thing I hate more than lads bigging it up in team meetings, it’s lads from outside coming in to big it up for us. Even BOD.

I had the hoodie on, and was at the back of the room, and so slipped in one earplug from the iPod. This stage, it’s all about getting into your own place.

“I savour hate as much as I crave love because I’m just a twisted guy/Is this the pinnacle, is this the pinnacle, the pinnacle of being alive?”

I could see BOD watching me. First time we met was in RTÉ, a teenage programme, and we had a night out afterwards. It was crazy: miles and miles of talent lining up for us.

BOD goes on the straight and narrow, but I was in a different zone. I never won so much breaking ball in my life – actually, it just fell into my lap, my preferred method of obtaining breaking ball, in case you haven’t noticed.

“You’ve got to take responsibility yourselves, guys,” I could hear him, competing with Biffy on the earphones, “and when I say you, I mean Y-O-U. Not the fellow beside you. Not the team as a whole. But Y-O-U. It’s war.”

You know what I think about war metaphors, but, in fairness, if there’s one man you’re going to listen to invoking the battlefield, it’s BOD. But I can’t be a hypocrite, I’m not going to listen to any man invoking the battlefield.

“Forget about everything. Forget about what people are saying it means. Forget this is a defining game in your lives. It’s just one more set of white lines. Just an All-Ireland quarter-final. Or is it semi-final? Sorry, semi-final, that’s right.”

Funny, that. Just two nights earlier, bird brains had given a long speech telling us “this is the biggest game of your careers”, accompanied by a video with quotes from members of our families telling us what it would mean if we could win it. Lads were crying and everything.

My brother was on saying “if Rod could do his stuff on Sunday, we’d never hear the end of it – seriously, though, we’re very proud of Rod and know he won’t let down his family, his community, and his county”.

“When the see-saw snaps and splinters your hand/don’t come crying to me/I’ll only see your good side/And believe it’s a miracle/A miracle.”

BOD had another novel suggestion.

“Stand alone for the National Anthem,” he said, “because, in reality, you’re alone. A team is 15 – it is 15, isn’t it? – individuals working together, but it starts with the individual.”

Two nights earlier, we had run through how we’d all assemble on the sideline to include the 19 members of the backroom team, and the few dozen subs he hasn’t had the courage to cut.

BOD got a round of applause. He generally does, in fairness. Passing out by me, he taps me on the shoulder and says “long time no see, Podge, good luck Saturday” and motions an imaginary phone to his ear as if to say ‘call me sometime’, but it makes little odds, I only have the number he never answers.

We’re nearly there now. This close to big games, I dream a lot. I have this recurring one where I’m out on the field, doing this and doing that, and no-one can stop me, and, somehow, I realise I am only 11 years of age.

Then someone else realises it too, and there’s a big commotion and the referee tells me to leave the field. I sit up in the commentary box and I listen as we start to lose, and I want to get back out again, but my eyes are closed, and no matter how hard I try to open them I can’t, and eventually it all just peters out, and we’re beaten, and I wake up.

Sometimes it takes me ages to even realise it has been a dream.

I have another recurring dream, too. I can even induce this one. This time, I’m my present age, and I’m four inches taller than I actually am, and I’m working my magic, and instead of anyone trying to whip me off, the crowd are on their feet, and they’re singing “Rodding all over the world”, and it feels good, it feels right.

I’m rooming with Grinkers Saturday. Suspect he doesn’t trouble the dream stage too often. BOD is right: it is up to me. If I don’t do it Sunday, who will?

“This ain’t a miracle/this ain’t a miracle/this ain’t a miracle/this ain’t a miracle.”