Lyng grows from underdog to Allstar Cat

HE is prone to moments of introspection, so self-critical that he will examine his performances forensically.

You’d think an Allstar in his first full season might have eased any selfdoubts, but Derek Lyng didn’t want to be a one-season-wonder.

For the Emerald Urlingford’s finest, the next game, the next season, is always the test.

He admits to reading the newspapers, but if they say, he is “off-form” or “going through a bad-patch”, he takes it personally.

But to get to know the real Derek Lyng, you have to go back to his teenage years to find the monster hurler just waiting to break out, waiting to become, as he is now, one of Cody’s favourite players.

During his days at St. Kieran’s College, where kittens are transformed into Cats, he was overlooked, at Waterford IT he was always on the periphery and he was ignored, too, by the Kilkenny minor and U-21 selectors.

But, Lyng kept plugging away, and, when he got his chance, boy, did he take it.

He came onto the Kilkenny senior training panel in 2001 but found the going tough.

“It did make my game develop, though,” he said.

“I hadn’t been used to that level of intensity. I got a bit cuter with the ball. I still get blocked down, don’t get me wrong, but it was more of a learning year for me. I was never used to anything like that before.”

But Cody gave him the confidence. Buckets of it. He made the championship cut in 2001, played bit-parts in the championship before Galway sliced and diced the Cats in the All-Ireland semi-final. Then Cody’s ruthless streak came to the surface.

In the 2002 league campaign, Cody saw in Lyng his new midfield prototype, in the Colin Lynch mould. He had, as John Henderson described then, “a great engine”.

Five players played in their first All-Ireland final that September, and Cody’s road to redemption was in repair after the previous season’s calamities. Lyng was very much part of that journey. “There were a load of us new to that team, fellas who had never started matches,” said Lyng. “Brian’s attitude was that the jersey is yours until someone takes it off you. I think that gave the likes of myself confidence.”

His Allstar brought its own pressures. So in the 2003 league campaign, he set out to prove he wasn’t just another one-seasonwonder.

But instead he was back to making the same silly mistakes, dilly-dallying on the ball and being regularly substituted. At training one night, Cody noticed his body language just wasn’t right and gave him some psychological medicine: “ ‘You don’t look too happy in yourself,’ Cody said to me. ‘Just knuckle down and get back to basics, work a bit harder.’ It was just the tonic I needed,” said Lyng.

Cody, he admits, has been hugely influential in rescuing his career, the angel on his shoulder prodding and cajoling him.

When last season ended, Lyng had won his second All-Ireland medal and another Allstar. The pressure was off, but in Kilkenny, with Cody watching every player like a hawk, Lyng still couldn’t rest on his laurels.

His father, John, played with Eddie Keher on the Rower-Inistioge team and lined out a few times with Kilkenny seniors, but never cemented his place amongst the hurling gods of that era. He is glad his son is prospering and showing how underdogs can become achievers.

Which brings us forward to 2004. Again the self-questioning permeates his thoughts on this year’s road to Croker. Happy with your own performances this year, Derek?

“Ah, so-so, you know. I suppose I haven’t been scoring as regularly as I had been the last few years. I’d be critical enough of my own game. I could be hurling better but I’ve just got to keep the head down and hope everything comes right on the day.”

He wasn’t alone in the self-examination stakes after the Leinster final loss to Wexford: “It’s down to attitude really. Maybe we weren’t as hungry as we should have been. You think you are up for a match but really you’re not working as hard as you should be in games.

“I suppose we had to take a hard look at ourselves really and put that extra 10% into training. I suppose now you could say that it’s working.”

Lyng puts all talk of the three-in-row to the back of his mind.

For him, it’s all about performance and being as honest as the manager expects.

“Everyone is looking forward to the day. Nobody in the camp here is saying it’s a three-in-row day. It’s an All-Ireland final and we’ll try to go out to win that, play as well and as honestly as we can, and it’ll probably dawn on us then that it’s the three-in-row.”

He relishes another big challenge from Cork: “The last day against Wexford they looked awesome but were unlucky against Waterford in the Munster Final.

“They’re a very good team and were very good last year as well. We had that little bit of luck last year in the All-Ireland.

“There is not going to be much between the two of us. Whoever gets the rub of the green, it’s as simple as that really.”