Hurling against the tide

Things are different now. Time was when Willie O'Connor would pile into the back of a van with the rest of the Glenmore county lads - his brother Eddie, big Christy Heffernan, Liam Walsh. Never a silent moment, just banter and japes until they tumbled out at Nowlan Park. These evenings, he drives to training alone, with only pop tunes or Eamon Dunphy's talk show to break the silence.

His work with Carey Enterprises has him driving a lot and on this Monday evening, the north Leinster towns are celebrating a sudden sweep of humid sunshine.

"It's definitely changed a lot during this decade," he says of hurling. "The game has got so fast. You would think that as you get older the game would come back to meet you, but it doesn't work like that, it just seems to get quicker. The whole scene has changed. The level of fitness demanded has taken the whole craic out of it. I sometimes feel that if it continues, it'll be difficult to get young lads playing in future. The country is going well, people have a few pounds in their pocket. Where is the incentive to go out evening after evening killing yourself on a field?"

He quickly stresses that he is just blowing off a little steam, that the severe and at times joyless path of the modern game is not anything he has fretted over in detail. Nor has it tempted him to stop playing.

"Ahh, I'll just keep going until I get a little sign from above. You take it as it comes, you know. There is a bit of a buzz around Kilkenny at the moment, especially in the south, where a lot of Waterford and Kilkenny folk work together. The way I look at it, you should enjoy the build-up to a game because it's quiet enough afterwards if you get beaten."

Yet beneath the veneer of anticipation lies a genuine perplexity at the county's hurling fortunes. These are troubled times for the traditionalists in Kilkenny, with upstart insurrectionists over-running the nobility all across the land. Best to ignore it.

"People in Kilkenny almost expect us to be in a (All-Ireland) semifinal," comments O'Connor. "There is a feeling that we might fade for a year or so and then we'll be back. It doesn't work like that. There's not much talk about us this year, which is only natural, because we are going very poorly. You look at our record over the past few years and there is not a lot to be confident about. Very inconsistent."

He speaks almost nonchalantly about his county's form, as though it's just an irreversible fact, best just accepted. The careless tone belies an on-field craft through which O'Connor has defined himself as an unflinching, spirited defender, rarely bested. He grew up with the black and amber, from his minor days in 1985, through to the Under-21 All-Ireland final three years later. He sat on the senior bench that summer; the following winter he made his debut.

Years and countless matches, those back-to-back All-Irelands in the early 1990s, all now blend, leaving him only with the clarity of small moments, the vivid recall of private duels won. It seems that Kilkenny quickly and imperceptibly just melted away.

Clare emerged with a fire and intensity which caught O'Connor's eye and now he has watched Waterford do the same.

"They are moulded in Clare's form in that they have that incredible hunger and fitness. They are essentially a young side, willing to put in that exhausting commitment and it's paying off for them. If we are to do anything on Sunday, we'll have to get to grips with their forwards from the start," he says.

In a sense, he has enjoyed the fireworks of recent years, the new splash of colours in Croke Park.

"New teams coming out is good for the game," he says. "And you know, if we could just win an All-Ireland this year, I wouldn't mind seeing more counties doing the same next year."