Playing games instead of training suits Sars defender Martin just fine
Heavy training in between is not much of an option, but that probably suits Sars wing-back Éanna Martin, who has been plagued with injury this year and is enjoying the return to playing games.
“All you’re doing really is ticking over and staying sharp,” he said.
“Last year, we played four times in the space of about five or six weeks. It’s an advantage if you’re playing well but it can be a hindrance if fellas pick up knocks.”
Sars are available at 1/10 with the bookmakers, but complacency has rarely been an issue for the 2008, ’10 and ’12 county champions.
“We’ve been favourites for most of our games the last few years, so lads are used to it,” Martin said.
“You think back to a game where you have been caught, and everyone gets caught — look at Wexford U21s against Antrim this year. Killeagh have good players, they have Joe Deane, Brendan Barry, Andy Walsh [and] Bernard Rochford won an All-Ireland medal with Cork. It’s a cliché but we’ve no problems with focusing.”
Wexford star Martin is based in Cork as a sales representative for medical firm Phoenix Labs, so he initially began to train with Sars at the start of 2010 before transferring, along with county team-mate Eoin Quigley, for 2011.
“It would have been to difficult to go up to Wexford two nights a week so I asked Colm Bonnar, who was manager at the time, if it was all right. I knew so many with Sars it was like Fitzgibbon training.
“Having that year made it easier to transfer then, it was hard leaving but I think people at home realise how long a journey it is.
“It’s not just the trip from Cork, I could be in Kerry or Clare for the day and it’s hard to even get back for Sars training. The club understood, there was a good crowd of them at the Cork final last year.”
The journey from Wexford to Cork for a county final was one Martin himself had often made.
“It might be hard for people to understand, but when we were younger we used to come down from Wexford for Cork county finals. I remember being at Blackrock against UCC in 1999.
“Our whole family went to the Na Piarsaigh-Cloyne final in 2004 when Setanta [Ó hAilpín] came back, we had to go on the Blackrock End terrace as there were so many people there! To win last year then was unbelievable.”
So good were his displays last year that it led to him being used more by the county outfield, having spent much of his career in goal up to then.
“Myself and Liam Dunne had a conversation at the end of last year,” he said.
“He would have heard I was going well with Sars as a wing-back and said there would be no bother if I wanted to have a go at it. Underage, I was always a goalie.
“The first time I played outfield was in a Leinster intermediate final, John Meyler brought me on because we were short of subs. Then with UCC I played in goal for three years and when Anthony Nash came it suited me to go outfield, Paul O’Connor played me there regularly.”
A return between the sticks is unlikely, so Sars netminder Alan Kennedy can rest easy.
“I’ll stay outfield, but the boys are always on to him about it!” Martin laughed.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
