Different strokes for different GAA folks

It’s 2019 and the Dublin footballers are trying to go where no other team has been before in the history of the GAA: ‘Five in a row, five in a row, never again will there be a five in a row’. And all that!
Dublin are marching behind the band and their great free spirit Jack McCaffrey is smiling and looking all around him – he’s almost waving at the crowd. Enjoying it. Embracing it. Inhaling it. Encouraging others to do the same.
Tony Kelly is a hurling free spirit. A generational talent like McCaffrey, but he’s different. There will be no smiling, court jesting or enjoyment. Just business. The business of the hurling match. The biggest match of his life.
“It’s for everyone else to enjoy; we have a job to do,” he says. “The players can enjoy it after if we go and actually do the business. When we get there it’s important to win. That’s all we’re focused on.”
For Kelly and those who have been here before it’s redemption falls. You know the story. After the senior triumph in 2013, which came in the middle of a three-in-a-row of All-Ireland Under 21s, that he’s the only survivor of on the field of play, they were labelled the golden generation.
It followed that more All-Ireland’s would come as a matter of course – and sooner rather than later, only for five years to pass before they even made it back to Croke Park, before it moved into double figures in years before they won a game there.
That was last Saturday week against Kilkenny, but you guess that Kelly, who still managed greatness in the bad times that followed after ’13, never doubted that things would turn once more.
“It doesn’t feel like 11 years,” he admits.  “They have gone by in a blink and a flash. It’s taken long enough to get back there.
“When you get older it’s reward for getting there, for sticking with it and the work you put into it.
“You appreciate it the older you get how hard it is to get back to an All-Ireland semi-final first and then win it and get to the final.
“You just have to stay plugging away. When you’re losing, whenever that game is from 2014 onwards you just have to try and get better year on year.
“The work that has gone into it. It’s not just this year; it’s from that Covid year onwards. It’s just reward for the effort that has gone in since Brian and his management team have come in.
“This is what you hurl for. This is top level sport. This is the pinnacle game,” he adds.
Kelly reached those heights with his clean sweep of 2013 – Hurler of the Year, Young Hurler of the Year, All-Star, All-Ireland and he was still just 19. Now at 30 his journey back to the big days has been much more challenging because of injury.
“It gives you a great appreciation for it. You know with an injury, especially with a condensed season it could literally take your whole season away.
“I was down in the rehab with Ryan (Taylor) and it’s not too bad when you have someone with you. It is a lonely oul stop when you’re on your own.
“I was lucky in that I had him when we came back in October/November/December. We were rehabbing away for four or five months together and then I got reintegrated back into the group and he was on his own for a long part of it.
“Coming back from injury you’re just happy you can take part in a run like this. Coming from Clare they don’t come around too often – we’ve only been in seven or eight of them in our history. I’m blessed to be back on the field and trying to contribute to bringing back some silverware.”
For Kelly that contribution really came to the fore with those three crucial points in the second half of the semi-final that helped the side finally return to the Promised Land of an All-Ireland final after a generation.
Still, he’s quick to remind you that it’s only that if they manage to finish the job. If he didn’t know this, Brian Lohan would remind him, because getting to the 2002 final was never enough for him, so much so that in defeat he was of the view that they might as well have not been there at all.
“The biggest reward is going to Croke Park and winning it,” says Kelly. “That’s the biggest reward,” he says again. “Croke Park is no place to be going to lose an All-Ireland.
“That’s one thing we have – although it’s 11 years we still have a lot of lads on the panel to draw from the experience of preparing for a final, what goes into it (winning it).
“That’s good as well that you have those seven or eight lads to draw on, while Brian has experience from his own playing days as well.”
The difference, he says, is in how much things have changed. From Brian Lohan’s All-Ireland days in ’95, 97 and the disappointing denouement of ’02, but also in Kelly’s crowning year of 2013.
“It’s so much different to 11 years ago in the sense of where the game has gone in terms of video analysis, the way the teams set up, tactical work and things like that,” he says.
“It’s about being consistent in all areas in terms of how you set up. Your application, your energy, your work rate, minding the ball is so much different than 11 years ago.
“It was more win your position and get the ball up to the forwards as best you could. It was up to them to go and win it. The backs had their job done. It’s transformed and it goes though cycles like that.”
Of course, the only transformation that matters is that it’s Tony Kelly who gets to climb the Hogan Stand steps, like Patrick Donnellan did in 2013 and Anthony Daly did in 1995 and ’97.
All he’ll say on that is, “for us it’s about getting a consistent performance for 70/75 minutes.
“That’s the key thing. We know that hurling for a half like we did against Kilkenny isn’t going to be good enough to win the Liam McCarthy.
“It’s about bringing that consistent performance. We know every team is going to have their purple patch, but can we sustain ours for a longer period is going to dictate whether we win or lose.”
They’ve beaten Cork in their last three championship jousts. By a point last year, with the margin being two this year and two years ago.
A four-in-a-row by a similar margin would do just fine.