THE WEDDING STINGER
Cats ace Reid swapped a honeymoon for pre-season slog but you won’t hear him moaning..he loves the grind
HAVING endured a lengthy honeymoon period before breaking into the Kilkenny team, Richie Reid is prepared to put his post-nuptial getaway on the long finger for now.
The Kilkenny defender tied the knot with his fiance Sabrina at Christmas but, given the wedding’s proximity to the start of the inter-county hurling season, they’ll wait until later in the year before honeymooning, not that Cats boss Derek Lyng was applying any pressure in that regard.
“From Derek’s side of things, he asked me if I was going away and I told him I had nothing planned,” Reid explained. “He told me to take as long as I wanted off but I kind of had it in my head that it was my first pre-season back for a number of years. I was after putting in a hard block of training so I just took a week off.
“We went down to Adare Manor for two nights and down to Cork for another two. I didn’t want to miss out by going off for three or four weeks and then come back and have to put in that block of training again. She was understanding anyway so we’ve booked a honeymoon for later in the year.”
Reid admitted that his decision was at least partially influenced by the fact that his Kilkenny career was very much a slow-burner, having only made his Championship debut in 2017, his fourth season on the panel.
“It is in a way. When you’ve lost the last two All-irelands you have to bring that bit of hurt and this is my first year of a good preseason behind me and, as I said, I didn’t want to go off for the three or four weeks and come back and try to get back to that fitness level.
“So it was one of the things behind it delaying the honeymoon and, as I said, from Derek’s point of view he told me to go and take as much time as I wanted off but in my head I wanted to stay fit there and stay at what I was doing and get the body right.”
Reid’s inability to put in a block of pre-season training with Kilkenny was due to the success that he enjoyed with Ballyhale Shamrocks, with whom he has won seven county titles, six Leinsters and four All-irelands.
It leaves Reid in the rare position of being available for selection for Kilkenny’s Allianz League opener, which is at home to Wexford on Sunday. “We probably used to come back for the last two rounds of the League. I’m looking forward to getting a full shot at it this year. With the Ballyhale lads, there’s another four or five of us so it’s a boost to have that training.”
Now well established as Kilkenny’s first choice centre-back, the 30-yearold was first drafted into the Kilkenny squad as third choice goalkeeper.
Occasionally, former boss Brian Cody would ask him to fill in out the field in training and, eventually, Reid asked to be considered in an outfield role.
“Thinking back, it’s not really good because you are working between two positions.
“Trying to keep Brian happy and keep myself happy, it was hard at times but I kind of sort of just said to Brian that I wanted to concentrate on a position out the field and that’s kind of where I went from.”