TEST OF METTLE
Weekly battles on a new landscape have Fanning relishing a...
‘Kilkenny are not back, we knew they were never going away’ ‘Less training and more games, the way we always wanted it’
FIVE weeks to go, the countdown comes easy to Mark Fanning.
The Wexford goalkeeper will complete his business accountancy degree in Waterford IT next month, but it is another examination based on continual assessment that the 27-year-old is consumed with presently.
A brand new shiny Championship is about to dawn, one which his team will motor into with their foot hard to the floor, as they face into four games inside 21 days.
‘It is a step into the unknown really for everyone, but it’s a challenge that I can’t wait to get into,’ enthuses Fanning.
So much, then, for the notion that the nine-point humbling by Kilkenny might have cooled Wexford’s appetite, or that the ominous sight of their neighbours crushing Tipperary a couple of weekends ago to win the Allianz League might have spooked them.
Right up until the past month, it appeared that Davy Fitzgerald’s team had finally got Kilkenny’s number — beating them in a League quarter-final and Leinster semi-final last year — but that was a fanciful idea to even those at the coalface.
‘Kilkenny were never going to go away in the first place, so it is hard to say that they are actually back in that sense,’ he says.
‘Kilkenny are Kilkenny and they are always going to be contenders, so it was never a case of us being afraid that they were going to come back because we knew they never going to go away.’
Fair enough, but that still did not explain why Wexford, in defiance of the form book, folded so tamely in front of their own.
The suggestion was that they had pushed so hard, so early that they had ran out of legs, but Fanning argues that the vagaries of sport means that not every bad day has to be a defining one.
‘We went out there determined to win that game so it was not a case that we went into it not taking it seriously.
‘The rivalry that is there at the moment between ourselves and Kilkenny is such that every time we go out we want to beat them. It did not materialise that way but that is the nature of sport.
‘You are going to have days like that, you are not going to produce a perfect performance every day you go out. We will just draw a line under it now, but overall we are all relatively happy, given where we were coming from.
‘If you said that to us in the start of January that we would go as far as the semi-final we would proba- bly have taken it.
‘We stayed up and that was our goal at the start of the year, mainly because it sets us up again for next year and in making the play-offs, it also sets us up nicely for the Championship in terms of extra game-time and also in terms of playing top-class opposition weekon-week, which is something we had not experienced before.
‘And since that is the way it is going to be in the Championship, that was great experience to get.’
In that sense, timing has been Wexford’s friend. They spent six years outside the League’s top tier, but their return has coincided with a format which will test them in ways they have yet to discover.
The draw has been both kind and cruel.
The kindness comes with the fact that they will be favourites to win their opening two games, at home to Dublin and away to Offaly, which would most likely be enough to see them into an All-Ireland quarter-final, at worst.
The payback is two-fold — any slip-up and they will have to beat either the reigning All-Ireland champions, Galway, or Allianz League winners, Kilkenny, to stay alive, while they and Offaly are the only teams who will not benefit from a ‘bye week’.
The latter could prove to be the biggest challenge of all.
‘It is going to be interesting to see how it works but I would imagine it is going to mean less training and more games, but sure since we started playing as kids that is the way we always wanted it to be,’ points out Fanning.
‘It is going to mean an awful lot of focus on the recovery of players and we are really going to have to manage ourselves in the week leading up to each game.
‘It is going to test players in terms of their own professionalism, in terms of what they do away from training to recover.
‘Look, the truth is we don’t really know what it is going to be like because it is a step into the unknown.’
The one thing Fanning does know is that the new format will see him pass a career milestone; the opening round clash with Dublin will mark the keeper’s 50th competitive (League and Championship) appearance.
He has not only become a mainstay, but Fitzgerald has knocked a new tune out of him as a long-distance, free-taking specialist.
It was his late goal from a free that sealed the Model County’s first win over Kilkenny in 60 years at Nowlan Park last year, while he racked up 0-7 in this year’s League campaign.
He also chalked his name into the history books earlier in the year, when it was his converted 65 that saw his team defeat Kilkenny in the Walsh Cup final — the first time a hurling match was won by a free-taking competition.
But the ease with which players are putting the ball over the bar — the trend of fewer goals and more points has continued unchecked this spring — at inter-county level has set alarm bells ringing that scoring has become too easy for the game’s good.
It is a theory which does not sit well with Fanning.
‘I would not agree with that; it is down to players’ skill level and they becoming better at it, rather than it become easier to score,’ he insists.
‘I just think the standards are rising all the time and that goes for defensive players as well, and trust me, it is not as easy as people think it is to score at this level. It is down to ability.
‘Even for the likes of myself and Kilkenny’s Eoin Murphy, that is something we have worked on, to develop that aspect of our game.
‘It does not happen by accident.’ Mark Fanning was speaking at the launch of Cairde Loch Gorman, which seeks to provide fundraising support to all levels of Wexford GAA. Benefits of membership include an advance option to purchase tickets for all Wexford championship games and further information can be found on www.wexfordgaa.ie