HOLDEN BACK THE YEARS
JOEY READY FOR CROKE PARK FAREWELL WITH ONE WAY TICKET TO MEXICO IN HAND
JOEY HOLDEN reckons that tomorrow will be his last foray in Croke Park. But you can never really be sure.
After all, last February’s final was supposed to be his swansong as he had already lined up a spell of travelling overseas with his girlfriend, Laura, in the aftermath of what proved to be a sickening one-point defeat to Ballygunner. But while rubbing shoulders with teammate Colin Fennelly in America, the hunger took a hold again. Before he knew it, he was back in the thick of it with Ballyhale Shamrocks.
“It’s hard to put my finger on,” he says. “I don’t know what it was. Just a great bunch of lads and a great community there in Ballyhale. To get that five-in-a-row in the 50th year of the club, it was a chance to do something special. That just drew me back.
“Colin was over there with me in America and he was driven to do that as well. Everything just accumulated.
“When it came towards going to Brazil or coming home, maybe that draw was just a bit too much. I came back and ultimately did that.
“Kilkenny and five-in-a-row, that was always in my head. That was the dream. Starting out in the year, we wouldn’t set a goal of winning a club All-ireland title or winning a Leinster title, it would be to win a Kilkenny title.”
After tomorrow’s All-ireland final against Dunloy, he and Laura will be heading for Mexico City and they don’t have a return ticket booked. By the time he gets back to Ireland, the ex-kilkenny defender says that his days as a senior club hurler will be over – although he adds that “we’ll never say never”.
“We’re not going to tie it down too much because if we like a place we might stay X amount of time. It’s generally Central America, it kind of almost leads you on a path so it’ll be Mexico into Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, all those places so some beautiful things to see. It’s exciting.
“We don’t know how long we’ll be gone for either. When I come back I’m hoping to hurl away as well, at whatever level or standard, there could be a food belly or a beer belly to negotiate, or something like that as well.
“Listen, when I come back to Ireland, there’ll definitely be work to be done in the club, whether it’s playing or helping out I’ll definitely be involved in the club some way.
“This is probably the last time playing in Croke Park. This could be the last club final you might ever be in, so the excitement levels are still the same for me, the nerves are still the same.
“But that’s part of it. There’s a lot of hard work gone into getting to the final. You still want to perform to your best when you get there.”
A ninth All-ireland would further cement their standing as hurling’s most successful club, but there always seems to be a fresh frontier for Ballyhale to conquer. They’ll be aiming for an unprecedented sixin-a-row in Kilkenny later this year and if they achieve it they’ll move clear of Tullaroan at the top of the county’s roll of honour on 21 titles, just over 50 years after the club’s foundation.
“Well I won’t be back, I’ll be still travelling,” Holden insists. “So I won’t be back hurling for Ballyhale this year.”
He’s reminded that he said the same thing last year.
“I know,” laughs the 32-yearold. “This time it’s definitely set. Yeah, there’s always something to aim at. It’s great, if it gives lads extra motivation.”