Getting back to Australia was like breaking into fort-knox for Colin O’Riordan.
But you get the impression the Tipperary man would have served a 314 day quarantine for that one day in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
There were police escorts, hotel room workouts and shut-down airports but the glow of Tipperary’s famous Munster final win over Cork got him by. The “embarrassment” of their subsequent loss to Mayo gnaws away too but make no bones about it, this was a golden winter for the Sydney Swans player.
“I was only saying to my girlfriend Louise,” he says now, four months on, “I had a dream last night that I was playing for Tipp again.”
The euphoria of that Sunday in November might never leave him.
“I am not sure I would have had it if I hadn’t played. “It was a special couple of months,” he says at the launch of Sports Physio Ireland’s new Athletic Development App for club GAA teams.
To understand the elation you need the context. This is a man who worried that his decision to play AFL professionally might mean the end of his days in the blue and gold. To reach the promised land once more was for him, a miracle and while whole-heartedly committed to making the most of his AFL career, he still holds out hope that there’s room for another GAA based chapter down the line.
“I’m only 25. I don’t think I’ve closed the book yet. I hope I haven’t anyway, but at the same time, I’ve an opportunity here.”
“It’s not a case that I’ll never put on the Tipp jersey again, but I’ll probably give this opportunity the best I can while I’m here,” he says realistically.
Tipperary waits with open arms.
For now, O’Riordan’s focus is on the AFL pre-season training which he describes as a “slog.” Indeed, 12-14 kilometre sessions day after day make our GAA exertions seem fairly trivial.
“To be honest with you, it’s probably everything you read about, and a bit more. And that’s not me blowing my own trumpet or anything.
“You’re talking about doing three sessions a week, where you’re clocking up 12-14kms a session. That’s pretty tough on the body, once you have to back it up every second day, is the hardest thing. It’s easy to go in and do a couple of sessions, when you realise it goes on for maybe six, eight, 10 weeks, that’s probably the hardest thing of all.”
Back to the in-vogue topic that is the 14 day hotel quarantine and while lucky to spend it with his girlfriend, there wasn’t much down-time for this motivated Killea man.
“I don’t know if she’d say the same but I’d say she was the saving grace in that you could have a conversation, you could sit down for dinner. To be honest though, it was just training for me. It was 9-5, I had a routine, had a plan.
“The club actually can bring in equipment for you. So I was lucky that they gave me a watt bike, medicine ball, and a few other bits of equipment. I was lucky enough. They kind of tailored a bit of a programme for my needs. Whether it was med-ball runs on the spot with the ball over your head, stuff like that. So you’re doing 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, to kind of replicate running. So when you come back to the pitch, it was good for me because it allowed my transition back onto the pitch to be a lot smoother than you would imagine.”
With the quarantine done and dusted, the show goes on. Cafes and bars are open he tells us and for a moment, you stop to wonder what the hell we’re playing at up here.
These moments, 85 years waiting 💙💛 forever grateful for the opportunity @sydneyswans 🙏 pic.twitter.com/hYM13ev0l9
— Colin O'Riordan (@colin_oriordan) November 23, 2020
“I don’t want to jinx it now or anything but it’s as if it (covid) doesn’t exist.”
As for the negative commentary from some local begrudgers about O’Riordan’s decision to come home to play, O’Riordan sees where they’re coming from and admits that it could be a case of Australian envy.
“As I said earlier, people are entitled to their opinion and you have to understand it as well. People don’t want you getting injured over there because they feel it’s unfair and I’m sure there’s an element of ‘I’m sure there’s an Aussie as good. That he’s coming over here and playing our sport, and wanting to take our jobs,’ and that’s just the way it is. “
“But at the same time, I don’t think you can let it bother you all that much. I’ve said it 100 times, but the club have been exceptional to me. I think they realise that there’s more to life than football, and while football consumes you, they understand the passion and desire of the Irish players, in particular, have of playing for their county, and what it means to represent their county.”
Into the final year of his Sydney Swans contract, this man has work to do.
“You’d be pretty naive or pretty stupid if you didn’t think that it wouldn’t bring added pressure but I think pressure… I’m a hard critic of myself anyway but that’s probably the biggest pressure I have, my own pressure that I set on myself and the targets I want to achieve myself, whether I have one year or four or five years, my aim every week is to go out and give it as much as I can regardless of what the circumstance is so I don’t think… a lot of people would think because you’ve a year, things change and you have to try and invent something but to me that’s probably not the case.
“It does create a bit of uncertainty about the rest of your future off the field but on the field I can’t see it changing too much. I’ve been there long enough now that if I can bring my game to another level and slowly build again, I’ll be pretty happy within myself and I know that I can put my head on the pillow knowing I had done everything I could.”
Colin O’Riordan was speaking at the launch of Sports Physio Ireland’s new Athletic Development App for GAA Club Teams. Click the link below to register for your free session
https://sportsphysioireland.com/online-fitness-platform/athletic-development/.
“I wish I had this when I was that age’ because mobility, stretching, strength, these are all things that probably get neglected, especially mobility and prehab stuff, they get neglected and I’m not just saying it but your platform allows young fellas to actually get this in a really high quality platform and it does enable kids, especially 15, 16, 17-year-olds and later on in terms of senior to really progress at a rate that you wouldn’t be able to if you’re not in inter-county or professional set ups so there is a lot of comparisons in the stuff,” O’Riordan said of the initiative.
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