Still answering the call of duty

CHANGES? Where do you start? May 23, 1999 was when senior football began for John Miskella, his introduction as a second-half substitute a footnote to Cork’s 25-point Munster championship demolition of Waterford.

He thinks back to the inter-county world he entered in Fraher Field, compares and contrasts the modern game and concludes that they’re two polarised sports. Miskella started off being exposed to penal regimes as a Cork footballer, enduring the torturous ascents of the hill in Macroom or the slog through the sand dunes in Inchydoney. Those memories make him wince, as do the nights when he pounded the roads on his own to get fit. Wisdom joined him along the road.

“We were dogged back then because we had to be. There was nothing wrong with it as it got us extremely fit but you wouldn’t dream of that now. For me, personally, the road running was the ruin of my body. The difference now is I’d spend an hour in the gym rather than on the road.