No more mucking around

WINNING managers swear by it. Teams shocked in the league by lowly neighbours use it as an excuse. And recently retired players shudder at the thought of it.

Winter training equals heavy training equals those back-breaking runs up those hills. Last year, Mickey Harte became the latest in a long list of All-Ireland managers to say the hard work was done in the deepest darkest months of the year.

It always is. Winter sorts the men from the boys and the sinew from the excesses of the few days a county player gets off a year. It was in the depths of winter, so the story goes, that Loughnane and Mike Mac started the Clare revolution on a hill-side in Shannon, driving vomit from the body of their players.