TEENAGE FIX Gleeson: Pressure off me now, I just want to go and enjoy game like when I was 16
AUSTIN GLEESON will invoke his teen spirit to reclaim his best form for Waterford this summer.
After being crowned Hurler of the Year for 2016, Gleeson admitted last November that he struggled to carry the burden of that accolade in last year’s campaign, when he produced a number of indifferent displays.
Gleeson said he felt like a marked man after his exploits the year before and cited the All-ireland final loss to Galway as an example.
Speaking at the launch of the Go Games Provincial Days, which continue to be sponsored by Littlewoods Ireland, he explained: “In certain games I was being man-marked. In the All-ireland final, Gearoid Mcinerney, he followed me everywhere I think.
“At one stage we had a sideline and I was on the other side of the field and he literally followed me until I put the ball on the ground.
“I knew at that stage he was just not going to leave me alone. I think I read in the programme he was 16 stone so it takes a lot to get away from him!
“I suppose, I just have to try to get used to it. I was getting it the last few years at club level as well, so it’s something you just have to try to do, work your way into the game no matter where you are. “If the ball is
not coming, just get in and around, get in a hook or a block, just come into the game. It’s the simple things, you have to get back to the basics.
“Once you get back to them you’ll hopefully get yourself into the game.”
The 22-year-old believes that, ultimately, he’ll be the better for last year’s experience.
“Definitely, 100 per cent, you learn from your mistakes. Last year the pressure was on me but this year I am determined to go out and do what I did as a 16-year-old and just enjoy it.
“I am not saying that I was not enjoying myself last year but everything I did wrong I was kicking myself and everything I did right I was thinking I could do better.
“I just want to go back, enjoy it and play hurling as I did in previous years.”
His hopes of reclaiming his best form haven’t been helped by a luckless run of injuries, the latest affecting his hamstring, which he picked up on club duty last weekend.
He should be back for Waterford’s Championship opener against Clare on May 27 but he’ll have missed quite a block of training.
“We’ll know in the next few days when I get a scan done and we’ll see how it reacts then. It’s not as bad as it was but it’s a few weeks anyway.
“The Tipp game I had my right quad, the Clare game my ankle, missed the Cork game and first time back playing I done the hamstring. “I haven’t had that many injuries but three already this year is a bit of a disaster but we’ll keep working away in the gym,” said
Gleeson.