Ryall misses thrill of the hunt for Cats
“I’m looking at the label here and it says 25% free. When I was with Kilkenny, it was 100% free!”
He thinks of the packet of Jaffa cakes he has in the back of his Hyundai. “I had to buy them as well. And the hurls too. They don’t come free anymore. I didn’t stock up on them when I had the chance.
“I remember before the 2002 semi-final against Tipperary, John Power gave me a dig on the Wednesday before the game to go up and get myself a voucher for hurls in case we lost that Sunday.
“And grips... don’t talk to me about grips. We played Freshford there in a tournament game in Tullaroan recently and I’d no grips.
“I went into the shop and the woman only had pink grips so I’d to go with one of them. I’ve a rip in my boot too. Jesus, it’s the small things you miss.”
It’s been eight months since Ryall stepped away from Kilkenny after eight seasons, taking with him six All-Ireland medals, seven Leinster and four league titles. There’s plenty he yearns for but there’s a lot he doesn’t. Like the constant monitoring of his fitness and well-being. The training sessions I go to now, at least there’s no hydration tests. I remember our nutritionist Noeleen Roche would have an A4 sheet and she’s had four headings, very hydrated, hydrated, dehydrated and severely dehydrated.
“One time she had four or five under the first heading then the rest of the panel under-hydrated. There was nobody in the dehydrated group but there I was under seriously dehydrated. She said the next step to that was a coma.”
Where Ryall works as a sales rep at Michael Lyng Motors, he’s about 200 yards away from Nowlan Park. Driving home, he sees the familiar cars parked outside on the Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. He sometimes sees the few of them there on the nights in between, players getting in the gym work.
He misses none of that but there was a tinge of regret in Croke Park last month. “The first time I missed it was in the Leinster final. I stayed around for Brian Hogan’s speech and it hit me then. I wanted to be out on the field.”
It didn’t matter how many times Ryall looked up to see the Bob O’Keeffe Cup being lifted by a teammate, it never lost its flavour with him.
Likewise, weeks like this one building up to big games. Bridging the gap between Leinster and the All-Ireland series was never a concern. Kilkenny had it down to a tee.
“We never went mental (in) training,” recalled Ryall of these four weeks. “We never tired ourselves out. You’d hear of some teams doing massive training sessions after winning provincial titles but it was always a week off for us.
“The following weekend, you’d be playing with your club. After that, you’d only have three weeks and really only two weeks of hard training so it was never that difficult for us.
“That system never really changed and there was no reason to change. I always remember Cody saying in those weeks of hard training to go hard but he’d always guarantee us we’d never be tired coming up to a game.
“Cody was never about flogging lads. I’m not saying other counties don’t do the same but if you’re back training hard straight after the provincial championship, it can get a bit monotonous and tire you mentally.”
That’s not to say the battle for starting positions isn’t fierce, says Ryall.
“With Kilkenny, it’s always been about getting themselves right more than focusing on other teams. There is fair old competition there. Of the team that started the last day, there would be very few who’d think they are absolute definites for Sunday, no matter how long they’ve been there.”
Even if there were spells when Ryall wasn’t starting championship, he never let up. Brian Hogan and Michael Rice, two of the team’s main men, spent three years on the fringes before making the breakthrough.
“The breaks always come, you just have to be right to take the break,” says Ryall. “A few of the times it came my way I was hit with injuries. I’m not the only one. PJ Delaney has been hit with bad luck again. Taggy [Aidan] Fogarty’s the same. Now Michael Rice might be out. You just have to make sure you’re ready.”
Since jumping the fence, the biggest misconception Ryall hears is talk of trouble in the camp when there is none.
“A few of the stories you hear would make you shake your head. Someone saying Cody and this fella had a few words and this lad isn’t happy.
“I remember a few years ago a lad told me that he heard something happened in the dressing room at half-time. Only 30 people were in that dressing room and I was one of them but this fella persisted in telling me that something happened when it didn’t.
“It’s amazing how people so firmly believe in stuff. It’s pretty straightforward in Kilkenny. If you’re injured, you’re out. If you’re not playing well, you’re out. There’s no big science behind it.
“It’s not like playing for a club. Nobody is going to go AWOL on you. The best players are there. They’re there to perform and win games.”
And get their fill of sports drinks...
