HERITY STILL BACKING THE CATS
Former goalkeeper claims that the 11 All-Irelands delivered under Brian Cody has made winning a habit
DAVID HERITY came out of Mass last Saturday night, switched on the radio — his former teammates foremost on his mind — and tuned into the updates from Páirc Uí Rinn where Kilkenny were taking a pummelling from Cork.
The first thing that went through the mind of a player who won five All-Ireland medals during his time in that dressing room, says everything about the mind-set of Brian Cody’s team.
‘Seven points down I thought, “Lovely. This game is going to be interesting.”
‘Because I knew they were going to win — it was just a matter of how they were going to claw their way back.
‘Even when they were six down with six minutes to go, I thought, “Which one is going to stand up?” Even when you were playing, I remember coming in at half-time in matches and you could be six or seven points down and there’s never any panic. It’s just that air of “Yeah, we know what we’re doing.”
‘Just as losing is a habit, winning is a habit. Lads are just used to it at this stage. There is an inner belief.’
Kilkenny entertain Dublin in the last round of the All ianz Hurling League this afternoon but Herity (right) won’t be in Nowlan Park. Instead, he’ll wear the blue of Dublin at Parnell Park today — as coach to the county’s senior camogie team who play Clare in the League. Nope, he didn’t see it coming either.
Working as a primary teacher in Huntstown National School, he took a goalkeeping coaching session last year at the behest of manager Shane O’Brien and before he knew it, found himself part of the official team management unveiling before Christmas.
Putting on the gear brought home his status as an ex-Kilkenny hurler.
‘He [Shane] threw me the t-shirt and I kinda looked at him and thought, “What?” ‘It was just the fact that I thought, “This is happening very soon.” That was the moment I realised, “I really have separated from Kilkenny.” It was under a year since I retired.’
Not long after shoulder surgery, he made a point of meeting Cody one-on-one to talk through his decision before it became public in November 2014. ‘I rang him up and said “Could I meet you?” I know certain people in the past had just made a phonecall but for me, because he had done so much, face to face was the only way.
‘The great thing was, it’s not too often you got to talk to Brian one-onone, with the defences down. It was great. I had an hour and a half conversation with him in Kilkenny. You got to know a bit more of the man away from the whole manager thing.’
‘I had the sling on after the injury so he asked about that. I told him I was retiring. We talked about other things in life — about the past, about the wins, teaching, everything.
Asked if Cody tried to talk him out of it, he laughs out loud.
‘Are you mad? In Kilkenny, you don’t get an invite back. When you’re gone you’re gone. You just don’t walk back into a set-up like that — ever!
‘You move on. You don’t take retirement lightly. You’ve thought about it for weeks, for months. You have new things to focus on then, like the Dublin camogie.’
The unscripted existence of life outside the inter-county bubble has opened his eyes. ‘I actually thought having a life was going to the gym three times a week, training three times a week and going off to a match in bloody Galway or somewhere — but it’s not. You neglect friends, you stay away from weddings and stuff because you think hurling is the beall and end-all. It’s only when you step out of the bubble that you realise that there are so many other things in life.
‘The more professional it’s getting, the less of a balance is out there.’
He was just 31 when he stepped away. Still playing club hurling with Dunnamaggin and involved with the county football team — he’s the only player to win a senior hurling All-Ireland and British junior football championship on the field of play — he sees players making career choices because of the commitment involved at the highest level. Is that healthy in terms of the bigger picture? ‘No. Lads are definitely going for the teacher jobs because of say holidays and what it means to be able to hurl. It’s going down to players of the age of 17 or 18, that if I want to be a hurler and do it properly, I won’t be able to do certain jobs. It’s not physically possible. I need to be able to do a job where I have the whole summer off.
‘Before you’d nearly have an intercounty player who’d play until 35, 36 — it was a good, long life. Now, you look at Richie Power and it’s hard not to think that the average life of an inter-county player lasts until 30 years of age. Players realise that there is a limited time so they are busting themselves.
‘I don’t know how the players can physically put in more time than they are at the minute. It’s literally, finish your job, you might get a bit of food, then off to the gym. The next day it’s finish your job, recovery session. Then finish your job, off training. I don’t see what else guys can do unless it goes professional. It’s just the next step.’
And that’s not something he’d like to see the GAA embrace. ‘I would hope the GAA doesn’t go down that route, it would take an awful amount from the association. The divide then between the top counties and the rest — it would shatter it all.
‘There are enough problems going on in the GAA at the moment without going professional — I think that would just bury it altogether. Professionalism is another 20 years down the road before it becomes a proper topic of discussion.’