From ball alley to ball park: Justin brings the basics to the big stage

ON one of the biggest weekends in the hurling calendar, Justin McCarthy talks about the state of the game. Michael Moynihan brought a tape recorder and oxygen tent.

MONDAY morning in the oven that is the Rochestown College ball alley. In one corner Justin McCarthy, Waterford manager, hurling fanatic and on-off inhabitant of this same ball alley for 50-odd years.

In the other corner this scribe, on his first visit. Sweating nervously.