At times of adversity and crisis, the good people of the GAA like to use it as a test.
This is where championships are won, they’ll tell you.
Now we’ll see how much you want to succeed. Now we’ll see who has the stomach for the fight.
A lot of league campaigns haven’t even started yet all around the island but every session is precious already, so much so that, when the entire country is on lockdown and actually heeding red alert weather warnings, clubs in the GAA are out daring people to let them down.
Let’s see what sort of characters we’re working with now.
I remember training at 8am on a Sunday morning a few years back around this time. The season wasn’t starting until the second week of April but this was where the whole campaign would be defined now.
It was just a test, just to see who was bothered to punish themselves, get up at that and put the hard yards in at first light. The kicker was – and no-one spotted this until a few days out but, by then, we couldn’t back down – the clocks were going forward that Saturday night so we were actually training at seven o’clock on Sunday morning.
Still, we loved it. We sprinted up and down the pitch and, in between drills – or sets as they might as well have been called – we slapped each other on the back knowing we were passing the test. “Ballerin are sleeping now, lads” was the message ringing around the dusk-laden pitch as we scoffed at the effort of our opening day opponents compared to what we were doing. The whole time I was thinking, ‘yeah, so what? They’ll get up at a decent time with better sleep and go to training themselves.’ You’re not allowed to say those things during the test though – you just get on with it.
Ballerin won that game three weeks later.
This week, a snow storm has hit the island, shops have closed, workers have stayed at home and any cars out and about are having tuts and head-shakes in their direction. But the GAA must go on.
We never miss an opportunity for a bit of extra training in @KinsaleGaa Club!! The grounds look great today in the snow ❄️⛄️ @KinsaleNews @KinsaleCSGAA @Corksouthnews @BigRedBench @KieranMcC_SS @PaudieP @FiFinnymac @RebelOg_ @OfficialCorkGAA @CorkLGFA @CorkCamogie pic.twitter.com/4Yqctr9caK
— Kinsale GAA (@KinsaleGaa) February 28, 2018
The #beastfromtheeast didn't stop us training last night! #GAA #thetoughest @LaoisToday @Express_Sport pic.twitter.com/QpeJnIAvCC
— Ballypickas GAA (@BallypickasGaa) February 28, 2018
In Cork and Laois, some hardy teams went at it still but a lot of club players elsewhere would’ve received word on Tuesday or Wednesday that their sessions have been cancelled. Either the pitches are unusable, the risk of travelling wasn’t worth it and the games are all being postponed anyway so just try and get some sort of exercise done yourselves if you can.
The players of one GAA club though would’ve opened a similar message and thought they were getting the night off.
They weren’t.
Due to bad weather… there will still be training Tuesday night.
Imagine reading the start of that message thinking ‘great’ only for it to cruelly twist and the manager having his own little joke.
See you at 7.55 – now let’s see who wants to win a championship.
After all, you don’t choose your club – it chooses you.
He's snow good in the Goal! Clara GAA Club, KIlkenny @RTEToday pic.twitter.com/YXvj7HwLt7
— caroline clifford (@caroclifford) February 28, 2018
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