CONOR A VITAL PART OF TRIBE...

CONOR Cooney is in his 13th season with Galway.

Going the full year round so often with club and county — as St. Thomas bagged six county titles on the bounce and eight Championships since 2012 — it’s hardly surprising it felt like a chore at times when he was younger.

But at 31 and with three All-ireland titles under his belt — two club and one county — Cooney doesn’t feel like that any more.

“To be honest, there were probably stages when I was a bit younger when it felt like it was more of a chore,” he says, ahead of tomorrow’s Leinster SHC opener against Carlow.

“But I suppose now I have maybe more of an understanding that I’m not going to be around forever and you have to get the most out of it while you can.

“I’ve been lucky that I’ve been relatively injury-free, which makes it that bit easier. But I’m enjoying it and I’m still there and hopefully there’s a bit more in the tank all the time.

“You wholeheartedly believe that you’re going to win something.

“You wouldn’t be sticking around if you didn’t. Well, I wouldn’t anyway.

“I’m enjoying it at the minute and I’m fairly injury-free, looking forward to Championship starting and the weather improving.

Important

“You’re not going to be around forever so you want to win as much as you can while you can so that’s important.

“I remember saying to a lad that when Cyril Donnellan retired (November 2017) that I was feeling my own mortality a bit.

“That’s a few years gone but when you see lads that were there while you were there nishing up that’s probably when you do start to think about it.

“I feel t and healthy and I feel like I’m in a good place.”

Cooney is one of the players being cited in the debate surrounding the split season, as someone who it’s not working for and who has to go year-round. However, he has a different take on it. “I suppose there’s a degree of certainty in that you know when you’re playing and when you’re not playing,” he says. “It’s probably a good complaint that we’re going well with the club. Just thinking of our own club lads at home, they had a nice break there.

Whenever

“You might have a few lads who will go abroad and take the opportunity to do a bit of travelling and they will come back for the Championship whenever it starts — be it August or whenever.

“I don’t know if you’ll ever please everyone, to be honest. I can only speak from my personal experience. I don’t really mind it, to be honest.

“If managers manage it well, give you a bit of respect and don’t og you at training, it’s doable. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

“I personally would prefer to be playing matches than be training for six weeks with the aim of playing one match, and in the past being knocked out after whatever.

“Lads just want to play games, really. I understand there’s the players’ perspective, the media perspective, the managers’ perspective.

“But from my own point of view, I’d prefer to be playing matches and have matches to look forward to rather than having big blocks of training to look forward to and maybe a couple of matches.”