Farragher hoping pain will pay off for Tribesmen

GER FARRAGHER is one of the purest strikers of a ball in hurling, a midfielder in the mould of Cork’s John Fenton from the 70s and 80s – poetry in motion.

And yet, for several months, parallel to Galway’s preparations for tomorrow’s Leinster SHC semi-final against Offaly, in a regime that is very personal to himself, Ger has been honing a destructive streak.

It involves concrete, it involves a 14lb sledgehammer, and it involves pain, lots of pain. “I’m doing up my own house, started about seven months ago. I gutted it with a sledge and not much else. It was a bit small the way it was but this is opening it up.”

The house is in a quiet street in his native city and on the evening we met Ger was covered in dust and sweat, surrounded by the broken remnants of what had been a concrete-block fireplace.

As someone who has been on the business end of a sledge on many a similar occasion, you sympathise, but – you add – when you’re doing it for yourself, it’s more fulfilling. “Maybe it will be,” he says, “but after a hard day’s work (he’s a carpenter) it can be tough to face into it on your own.”

Harder again when your other evenings are taken up with intense training with the county team. But he insists the sacrifice is well worth it.

“That’s probably why hurling is so special, that pride that players have in their county and in their clubs. Every player is doing the same, they’re all trying to do a day’s work, do whatever else they have to for themselves on top of that, and still go training. You have to do it, if you don’t you fall behind.”

He was a bit of a star back in the day, Farragher, a double All-Ireland minor winner with Galway in 1999 and 2000, All-Star winner and championship top scorer in 2005.

And yet it has taken him until now to make the kind of impression his talent ordained. “The first year I was there (2002) I was only just out of minor and came on against Clare in Croke Park; I didn’t really get a look-in the following year, then in 2004 I pulled out for a year because of a lack of games, injuries and stuff.

“In 2005 then, with Conor Hayes as manager, I made the breakthrough, but I was on and off again with Ger Loughnane. Last year was probably the first time since 2005 that I got a decent run in the team, and you can’t beat games. No-one trains just to sit on the sideline.”

Though a proven striker, deadly accurate from play or from placed balls, midfield is Ger’s favourite position, the place he cut his teeth with club and county, the place he now occupies for Galway alongside youngster David Burke.

Therein, of course, lies the quandary for someone like Ger Farragher; he wins the ball in midfield, knows that he’s well capable of scoring from there himself but knows also that inside in that forward division he has the talents of Joe Canning, Damien Hayes, Iarla Tannian, Joe Gantley and Aidan Harte.

Some would say that was always the problem in Galway – so much depth that there too many guys on panel who were the equal of those on the pitch, with the result that no-one ever got a real opportunity to settle, to grow from their mistakes rather than just being dropped.

It is a different story under John McIntyre, according to Farragher.

“This year, more than any other year, in the league and the Walsh Cup, fellas were given a real chance. Even Donal Barry from my club; his first game for Galway was against Laois and he probably started off a bit nervously, but in fairness to John he gave him time and Donal turned out to be one of our best players through the league.”

He’s enjoying his hurling these days, being back in maroon, being back in midfield, and enjoying being in Leinster, a proper provincial championship before the deep waters of the All-Ireland. “I’m loving it. We have one big game behind us, against Wexford and another one coming up, against Offaly – any other year after the league final we’d have been waiting for months for a game. It’s great to have a level playing field. It used to be that Galway would say, ‘Ah we’re coming in cold’ – we’ve no excuse now, we’re the same as everyone. Like Wexford, Offaly will be another battle. It’s all in the day, we’ve trained as hard and as well as we’ve ever trained.”

They have, but some have trained harder than others. When tomorrow’s game is over – win, lose or draw – there’s a spare sledge at Ger’s new house for anyone who fancies lending a hand.