OUR CAPTAIN FANTASTIC!

“And then I got the call this year for the county and Seamus rang me, he gave me a break first.

“He did his homework in the Leinster club.

“He rang me a few days before the game (against Celbridge, who Seamus Murphy managed last year) and he wished me the best of luck for the Sunday but Celbridge were the better team and we were probably short one or two hurlers that might have changed things on the day but overall they were the better team and they deserved to win and Seamus had his homework done.

“He came into the dressing room afterwards and he wished us the best of luck and now he’s with us and he’s wholehearted and he’s honest and that’s the way with him.

“He said to me during the week that it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from, he’s Seamus Murphy and honesty is the best policy and you can’t beat that. With Seamus it’s hurling, hurling, hurling.

“The set up is brilliant. Lads will give out about Mick (Neary) because he’s so honest but the way it is with Mick is that he’ll say it as he sees it and if you run over a ball and you don’t pick it up and a lad on the sideline says “Unlucky, well done, you’re brilliant”, you’ll do it again. But if a lad stops you and tells you, “Go back and there and stop acting the eegit”, that’ll be Mick, and some lads don’t like that and unfortunately if you’re not big enough and old enough to take that on then you probably shouldn’t be hurling at the same time.

“Mick will give it to you and that’s the way it is. There’s no better man in Wicklow who knows the game, knows these lads, knows the ins and outs of lads, he actually knows the way some hurlers think.

“I’ve seen him up training. He knows if a lad gets a ball he knows where it’s going because the lad always does it and he’ll try to change lads.

Getting the captaincy of the county team this year is a dream come true for Christy Moorehouse and he says it’s an honour to lead out the men that make up the Wicklow senior hurling team.

“To lead your county out is something else, you get the shivers down the back of your neck. There’s nothing like it.

“And then you look at the lads you’re leading out, the Eamon Kearns, the Ronan Keddys, the Billy Cuddihys, to walk out in front of them lads is absolutely a dream and them lads will give you everything every day and it’s nice to be able to give it back and we’re going well at the minute, we’ve lads training who probably never trained as hard before, maybe 42 or 43 lads up there last night and these lads are getting their time now and there’s some at the crossroads now so now is the time to give it a go and, in fairness to the lads, they’ve taken on a new lease of life and they are giving it a real go and Seamus and Mick have us going well and that’s only good for hurling and we’ve lots of young lads on team and it’s great.

“I was that young lad once and I never thought I’d be here now as captain and one of the senior players. It’s an absolute dream,” he said.