Barry glad to be away from all the hype

Tomorrow it’s the big show.

Tipp-Kilkenny in front of 80,000 people. A bit of a change for James Barry.

Over a decade ago he visited Croke Park for the first time, along with the rest of the Upperchurch U11s. Stuck up in a corner of the Hogan Stand somewhere, he says now.

“We were at the semi-final in 2001, the day Brian O’Meara got sent off against Wexford, and I remember that, him getting the line, but you wouldn’t remember a whole lot at that age. The crowd. The noise. That was all, really. Everyone’s favourite back then was Eoin Kelly, of course.”

Tipperary brought Liam MacCarthy back that September and the Upperchurch kids made it to the homecoming.

“Wherever we were I saw Eoin walking down the road with a couple of friends, so I headed over and got his autograph,” says Barry.

“You’d always remember that — he took his time, asked me my name, wished me all the best and that. It’s great when a lad takes his time like that.”

Earlier this summer he shared a championship game with Kelly, when Tipperary overcame Offaly in Portlaoise.

“It didn’t sink in until afterwards. To have played championship with Eoin after watching him for so many years... cool enough, given what he’s done for Tipp over the years. He’s a great role model. He’s been through the highs and the lows with Tipp over the years, the bad defeats and the great days.

“He’s great to go to for advice, so is Paul Curran, John O’Brien.”

Barry recently finished a master’s degree in UCC.

“I handed in my thesis there a couple of weeks ago on information systems for business performance to qualify as a business analyst: that’s four years done in Cork and I left with six medals so I can’t complain. I’m working with Bord Gáis, so it’s good experience.”

It was easy to be in Cork the week after the All-Ireland semi-final?

“Ah, Cork people are into all sports, it’s great, and it’s handy to be away from the hype in Tipp as well.”

UCC was a finishing school for his hurling a well: “It’s hugely important. You hurl with the likes of Darragh Fives, Seamus Harnedy and Conor Lehane down there and you see them going out in Croke Park on All-Ireland final days and being the best on the field. You know that if you keep training and if you’re playing against the best forwards in the country in the Fitzgibbon Cup, and you’re able to compete with them, you know you’re not too far off.”

He might have broken through earlier this year if it hadn’t been for UCC, ironically enough.

“In the early stages of the year, we had several plans to put James on the field,” says Tipp selector Paudie O’Neill.

“But, at the time, he was trying to combine being captain of UCC in the Fitzgibbon with being part of the Tipp panel. That can be a very demanding period, say January, February, March, for guys in that position.

“We intended playing him in one or two league games and he picked up injuries or he was under pressure with the college scene. But James is a very good hurler and any time we have asked him to do anything, not alone stepping into full back, I think it was the crucial final league game against Dublin in Semple Stadium, we had him on that day and he delivered for us that day as well.

“I think when he got the UCC responsibilities out of his hair, and I don’t mean that in a negative sense, and he was able to really focus on us, he really blossomed.”

Barry got a good grounding before he ever went to UCC, though. His sisters played minor for Tipperary and his father lined out for the county in the late ’70s. Current Tipp selector Michael Ryan is another Upperchurch-Drombane man, though Barry Jr flirted with another jersey as a child.

“My father trained Sean Treacy’s, the club near us. And, of course, I used to go up with him when he was training them, six or seven years of age, tog off with them thinking I was in that club. I can’t remember Mick playing that much with Tipperary, he was just finishing up when I started to take notice of the games.

“But I remember him playing for Upperchurch. I used to stand behind the goals if they were playing, puck the ball back in if it went out, Mick was the full-back, organising the defence.

“I often brought the water into the full-back line during a game and it was a fairly intimidating place when Mick was in there, controlling the square. You wouldn’t be too inclined to go in there yourself when you saw it up close.”

As Barry puts it, he went from a 14-year-old playing a bit of soccer behind the goals when the seniors trained in Upperchurch to getting called in for a dead rubber game. The company was good.

“Yeah, I was thrown in corner-forward and Mick was playing full-forward, so I knew I’d be well protected if it got hot and heavy.”

For a small club, having a county man can be the rising tide for all boats. “Mick was a huge presence, a huge inspiration to us. To have someone who played senior for Tipperary so recently meant a lot to us, a small club. The likes of Thurles Sarsfields would have lads playing for Tipperary on a regular basis; that wouldn’t be the case for us, so it’s important to have someone on the selection.

“Even the U12s now could say, ‘well, James is making it so I’ll have a chance as well’. We’re such a small rural club that it drives everything on again. We wouldn’t have had many played for the county over the years, when you go back to the club the lads would be asking you what’s done with Tipperary in training and that — recovery, food, all of that. It’s hard to make it back to training but you’d try to get back as much as you can.

“You’d notice the difference in that it shows when you play club hurling as well — if you’re able to get past inter-county forwards in training or in matches you’ll probably be able to break past club forwards when you come up against them, then.”

The All-Ireland semi-final last month wasn’t his first game in Jones Road, by the way. That was the All-Ireland minor semi-final in 2007 against Kilkenny.

“A good experience because we won,” he recalls.

“What was strange that day was how quiet it was. We were expecting huge noise because of the senior game, but sure there was hardly anyone in that early to watch the minor game.”

It’ll be louder tomorrow.