Putting an ‘unmerciful challenge’ in context

YOU would think that given the week that’s in it, Declan Fanning would be utterly consumed by tomorrow’s All-Ireland final, that all that would be on Tipperary right half-back’s mind would be how to contain this Kilkenny attack, how to deal with reigning hurler-of-the-year Eoin Larkin especially.

You would be wrong.

It’s his first All-Ireland senior final, and he’s as aware as anyone of the significance of such an event, but Fanning is no dewy-eyed kid, blinkered to all else that’s going on around him. An employee at the Coolmore Stud operation where he works on machinery maintenance, Declan (30) is also concerned about the recession, and despite his status as an inter-county hurler, even in a county where such people are accorded due honour, he takes nothing for granted. Even Coolmore, he says, top of the pile in a multi-billion euro industry, has been affected.