POWERS THAT BE TRUST WE WILL BE READY!
Dublin ace Cooper admits maintaining core fitness is a balancing act
Cooper and his colleagues only returned from their team holiday to South Africa this weekend.
It means that for the second year running they won’t see a minute of competitive action before the Allianz league begins.
Paul Clarke and his development squad have been fulfilling their Bord na Mona O’byrne Cup fixtures instead.
Their interest in that competition will end today in Enniscorthy unless Clarke’s rookies win by at least 17 points, securing a semi-final place.
If they don’t manage that then the focus will return to the main panel of players who will be on countdown mode to their league opener with Kildare on January 27.
Dublin looked sluggish at times in last year’s league after the long winter lay-off and drew three games before losing the final.
Cooper told Irish Sunday Mirrorsport: “I suppose it depends, number one, on what condition lads come back in. There’s a lot of trust being given to us to come back in some sort of decent condition.
“I can only speak for myself and what I’m doing but I don’t know what type of condition we’re going to come back in as a group, whether it’ll be 20 per cent down, 30 per cent or 40, and that will make a difference in terms of what needs to be topped up to get some sort of performance.
“It’s a balancing act, it’s tough. You need to get a break too, and Jim does in fairness, he gives us space and time and opportunities to go away with the families and everything else.
“That’s brilliant and I think that’s needed, to tick that box, but then you probably sacrifice a little bit because of that in January, in the first couple of weeks.”
Four-time All-ireland winner Cooper said he’d have happily played in the O’byrne Cup if he wasn’t away - to nail down a jersey early in the year.
As things stand, the likes of Brian Howard, Graham Hannigan, Ross Mcgowan and Gerry Seaver are in possession of Dublin’s defensive jerseys.
That will naturally spur Cooper on when he returns and he admitted that being a little off the pace in January can actually be a good thing generally.
He explained: “It keeps you on the edge. You don’t have three months of training under your belt where you’re coming into the league full of confidence which may actually tip you over the edge at some stage and leave you a bit complacent.
“At least you know now you’re always on the edge, always up against it and you really have to be on your nutrition, work has to be really well balanced, your sleep, all that stuff.
“So in a way it actually keeps you really boxed in and really focused. If there was room for over confidence after training so much maybe in the past, there’s definitely not now because you have to so much work to do in a short space of time.” JONNY COOPER has admitted a lot of ‘trust’ has been placed in Dublin’s threein-a-row stars to be ready for action in three weeks’ time.