The buzz is back for hurling’s boys in blue

I was walking into Croke Park last Sunday when I heard some fella calling me. “Hi Dalo.” I looked over and spotted a garda. “Jeez, what does some cop want with me?” I asked myself. Then I looked again. “Hedgo, how’s the form man,” I replied. “I’d recognise you in the helmet but not with the garda hat on.”

It was John Hetherton, the Dublin hurler, and son of my great friend, Ciaran ‘Hedgo’ Hetherton, a selector with me in Dublin for six years. The Hethertons are a great Dublin GAA family. Hedgo is a diehard Craobh Chiarán man but his wife Patsy is an even more fanatical St Vincent’s woman. So, before they got married, there was a prenuptial agreement — their first born, whether a boy or a girl, would play with Vincent’s and the rest of the family could play with the Craobh. The first-born just happened to be this big strapping fella, John. I remember going to a Craobh-Vincent’s championship match in 2014 and watching John and Kevin Hetherton playing on both sides. Hedgo was there with his mother, Phyllis, who was in her 80s. I spotted Patsy sitting on her own up against a wall in the shed in Parnell Park. Talk about nailing your colours to the mast.