This is the time of year players relish – the big prize is at the back of everyone’s mind

This is the time of the year to be playing. You want every minute. Your appetite for football is never greater than for these few weeks. You know that soon enough you’re going to have to go back to your normal life and that the summer will be over so you want to squeeze every last bit out of it while you can.

In my last year playing for Kerry, I was taken off with about 10 minutes to go in the quarter-final against Dublin. The game was long won at that stage, we were a good bit out of sight. But still, I remember being cross coming off. It was a bit irrational, I know, but I was cranky about it.

I'd been taken off earlier in the year against Cork but I didn't mind that so much because it was early in the championship. This was different. This was August in Croke Park, this was business time. At the time, it didn't matter to me that I was getting on a bit or that the management were trying to spare me a bit of energy. You don't think like that at this time of year. It was a fairly reasonable thing for them to do but I could not accept it at the time.

Totally agree

I look back now and I can clearly see their reason for doing it and I totally agree that they were right. I’d say it wouldn’t even have occurred to anyone that I might be annoyed. In fact I know it didn’t because they took me off against Meath in the semi-final and I was even crosser again!

Funny enough, when they took me off in the final against Cork, it was different. I was far more accepting of it. By that stage, I had run out of gas. Maybe it takes a while for sense to creep into an old head.

But still, it’s different at the end of a year than in August. The race is nearly run by the time you’re coming off in the final and you’ve emptied yourself. You’ve given what you could and there’s no other day down the road that you’re worried about.

Whereas now, at this time of year, you’re still that bit on edge. You’re worried about your place, you’re doing what you can to get noticed. You go along with all the talk of this being a 30-man squad but a part of you is still fighting your own little war. Why are these men taking me off with 10 minutes to go? What do they see? Do they not trust me here?

This is the time you want to be ramping it up rather than cooling it down and it can actually take you a while to realise that.

The older you get, the better you understand the way a season goes. If you watched Cork on Sunday, who was the player that showed the most urgency? It wasn’t any of the younger breed, it was Donncha O’Connor.

O’Connor is 33. He’s been around for the guts of 10 years. He knows the clock is ticking and that the end is coming soon. If not this winter then sometime over the next few. The way he played on Sunday screamed it.

The margin

Cork were six points behind and he made up the margin all by himself. He kicked a point from play, a couple of frees and then took his goal to level it. The goal was obviously the biggest score but it was one of the frees that actually told you more about how he was playing the situation.

Brian Hurley got fouled for it and he stayed down after the whistle went. Now, Hurley had a fine game and he was a big threat whenever he got on the ball. He had three different markers over the course of the game and any day you do that as a forward is a good one.

But Hurley is young still and when he stayed down after the foul – even though it was only for a couple of seconds – it showed that he’s still lacking that bit of awareness. You could see O’Connor going over and grabbing the ball, not stopping to ask if he was okay, not even thinking about it.

It was as if he was going, “look, we’re gone beyond being hurt, we’re gone beyond trying to get the other lad a yellow card. There’s a gap to close here. Get up and get on with it.” You close a big gap by taking the momentum. Chip a point, clip a free, keep the rhythm of the game going. Let them be the ones to lie down and take the sting out of the game. Why would we do it for them?

Cork are gone now, despite O'Connor's best efforts. Just like that, the year's over. They'll probably say that the disappointment of the Munster final was made up for with their showing against Mayo but I wouldn't be so sure. I think they'll look on 2014 as a so-so year at best.

With the players they have, they should be doing better. In fairness, it’s a tough environment for them in a county where hurling is king.

I was on the radio last week and it came up that the Cork hurling management would be annoyed if anything happened to Aidan Walsh against Mayo. This is his first season with the hurlers and his sixth with the footballers – yet people are talking as if he’s a hurler who plays a bit of football on the side. It’s going to be a big job for them as long as that’s the attitude.

But the championship goes on without them for this year. Meath are gone too, although they didn’t leave much of a mark on it. Kildare the same.

Galway showed a few flashes but they need to bulk up. They have some talented players but there’s no excuse for them now – eight or nine of their players should be taking this week off and getting into a gym programme designed to bulk them out from next week so that they come back in the spring built for the demands of the intercounty game. If they don’t, then we’ll know they’re not serious about contending.

That might sound like a big imposition but, in all honesty, if they’re made of the right stuff they won’t need to be told. That’s because this time of year gets its claws into you and drives you through the winter.

When you’re playing in August, you know you’re one of the lucky ones to be still going. You’re training in good weather, you’re creating good memories.

Best times

It isn’t a big surprise that the same teams keep getting to this point year after year. The Dublins, the Mayos, the Kerrys – they know what it takes and they go looking for more of it. The atmosphere at this time of year within those squads helps provide some of the best times of your life.

There’s huge enjoyment and huge competition going on side by side.

There was one year we had a training game coming up to a semi-final. It was one of those great nights where everybody is throwing the hammer after the hatchet and the hits are big and everyone comes away buzzing, knowing that the squad is in a good place.

At one stage, I made a 60-yard run and got in along the endline. I went to take a shot to put the icing on the cake only for Marc Ó Sé to come in and block me.

Now, ordinarily there’d be no disgrace in getting blocked by Marc – there were better players than me who got the treatment regularly.

But I was raging! He was after taking all the good out of my 60-yard run and for what? Sure didn’t everyone know he was good at blocking the ball anyway? Did he really need to show me up? So brother or no brother, I stood on him as I got up off the ground. Out of pure badness, I left the boot in him.

That’s the edge you have at this time of the year. In a training game in April or May, I probably wouldn’t have made the run, he probably wouldn’t have bust a gut to block me (actually, he probably would come to think of it) and I certainly wouldn’t have got so annoyed as to stand on him. But the prize is big around now. You’ve got to go for it bald-headed.

The enjoyment factor around now is huge. The big prize is at the back of everyone’s mind so the slagging comes to the fore, nearly to take everyone’s mind of it.

I heard a great story over the weekend about one of the young players in around the fringes of the Kerry squad at the moment.

His name is Conor Keane and he was a minor last year but Eamonn Fitz has him in at training. Every night you go training as the summer goes on, there’s a table with jerseys on it for the squad to sign. Different charities, different good causes – there could be a dozen jerseys to sign on any given night.

Botty O’Callaghan has been a character around the Kerry team for a long time and he threw Conor a marker and told him to get signing. Conor hesitated and said, “Ah no Botty, sure I’m not in the squad, I can’t be signing a Kerry jersey.” But Botty wouldn’t take no for an answer and insisted he do it.

All so that when Conor was finished, Botty was able to stand up and roar around the dressingroom: “Where do you get the balls? Lads, did ye see this young lad signing his name – sure there’s hardly room for the Gooch!”

Poor Conor was mortified but the place cracked up.

Kerry and Mayo are in a good place going into the semi-final.

We still don’t really know how good either of them are, purely because this year we won’t know how good any team is until they come up against Dublin.

The championship is like one of those horse races that you’d only put money on if you’re betting without the favourite. Kerry might be good, Mayo might be good but until we see them against the Dubs, we’re only guessing.

But the main thing for both counties is that they’re still here and still standing. In August, that’s all you can ask for.