Real challenge is defending titles, says McCarthy
"Indeed I am," the 32-year-old agreed yesterday, deadpan, "in the Masters!"
John McCarthy has always been a club hurler and a successful one culminating two days ago in his greatest honour, captaining his club to All-Ireland glory. Already this year he has led Newtown to county and Munster success; in 1996 he was captain when they made the intermediate breakthrough.
"When you're coasting in the last five minutes of a championship game, that's a lovely feeling; when it happens in an All-Ireland final, it's luxurious. Standing up in the podium afterwards, that is a life highlight for me, will always be.
"The most touching thing has been the goodwill from people far and wide. You expect it from your own, though you can get a touch of the other too, but it came from everywhere.
"I looked down from the podium at the thousands cheering for Newtown and I wondered, where did all these people come from? It was a beautiful moment."
They did the open-top business into the village last night, but as in the dressing-room after Wednesday's win, there was something missing.
"It was all a bit anti-climactic," muses John.
The sense of enormity wasn't there, not the same as winning the Cork championship, or Munster, not even the same as coming back after beating O'Loughlin Gaels in the All-Ireland semi-final.
Those were big games, tight games, against very good teams, and we were forced to play well.
"Of course we're happy to have won, but we came to Croke Park with a growing reputation, and we didn't live up to it. Maybe if we'd put in a five-star performance it would have felt better, but this was probably our worst performance of the whole campaign.
"Still, we're champions, did what we had to do, and the celebrations went on regardless."
In keeping with the general philosophy of his ambitious team, John also understands that while winning their first All-Ireland club title is a massive achievement, as champions, they face new and bigger challenges.
"The way we look at it now, we have three titles to defend, and we won't be giving them up easily. Six weeks to our first championship game in Cork, we'll take a bit of a break, get the appetite back, get ourselves ready again.
"The most dangerous time will be the early rounds in Cork. If your attitude isn't right you could find yourself knocked out in any of the first three rounds, but after that, attitude takes care of itself. You're into county semi-finals, final, Munster semi-final, final, All-Ireland semi-final, final, every one of them bigger than the next."
Another rocky road, but if there is one area where John feels confident, it's his own: defence.
"I've always felt that there isn't any great forward sextet in Cork club hurling, but now, I'd say there are few anywhere. Looking back on this campaign, Midleton to Dunloy, I estimate the average score we've conceded to be about 1-9. You won't lose many hurling matches when you're conceding only 12 points a game.
"Pat Mulcahy is most influential. At this stage he's targeted by every team we meet, yet he continues to dominate, to dictate games.
"He's a phenomenal player. One area where we'll have to improve however, is up front, goal-scoring particularly. Ben [O'Connor] has been brilliant for us. When other people talk about Ben, it's always his stickwork; when we talk about him, it's his fighting qualities.
"Jerry [Ben's twin] is a lot more low-key, even-tempered, very consistent in the middle of the field, but if things are going wrong for Newtown, if Ben gets a belt, you can see the fire coming into his eyes, and he could pop up anywhere.
"Happened against O'Loughlin Gaels in the drawn game, there he was back behind the half-back line trying to make things happen, even though he'd already almost run himself into the ground. But we need to start giving Ben more support up front."
Fortunately, with players like Mike Morrissey, Diarmuid Naughton, John O'Connor all pushing for places, that challenge can be solved internally.
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