Stephen Bray: I’m very selfish, I feel sorry for my wife

Veteran Meath forward Stephen Bray has admitted that prolonging his inter-county career has required him to be “very selfish” and put a significant strain on his family.

The 2007 All Star and former Royal County captain is aged 33, is married with two children under the age of three, and is seriously considering pulling down the curtains on his county career after the 2014 championship.

He said he only agreed to return this year after getting a tailored training plan from manager Mick O’Dowd, but accepted that playing on has left his wife Muireann to “carry the can” at home.

“If I’m being honest, I am being very selfish,” said Bray. “I feel sorry for my wife. She’s been very understanding for the last 10 years. We’ve been married now for four years. She has to live a very singular life at times and now that we have two small kids, it’s certainly not easy. Anyone that has family would understand that it’s huge work, with your daily routine between work and trying to care for them, just trying to organise yourself. I just have to keep singing her praises.

“There definitely was a chat at home. I didn’t want the situation to arise where it would cause friction. I’ve been lucky enough to play for 10, 12 years so, I didn’t want to be just selfish, as we are. It was time for me to say: ‘Look, is this okay?’ Because I know I’ve been doing this for the last 10 years and I’ve been selfish and we’ve missed out on a lot.”

Bray admitted that what partly convinced him to return was the desire to atone. Last summer’s Leinster final defeat to Dublin was Meath’s third in a row and easily the most difficult to take, as they went down by 16 points.

“I think that was a little bit of a factor,” he agreed. Yet, few outside of Meath expect revenge to be served up by Meath this summer. On paper, nothing has changed in the last 12 months, with Dublin Allianz League winners again and Meath coming up just short of promotion from Division 2 again.

Bray said the reality is that Meath is comprised of a young panel, but gaining crucial experience all the time and building towards a peak.

“By a long way, I’m the oldest,” said the Navan O’Mahony’s man. “I wouldn’t even classify myself as a leader in the sense that I feel I’ve got experience, but it’s more coming from a different group, if that makes sense. It’s those guys who are 24, 25, they’re the leaders of this team. Your Donal Keogan, your Graham Reilly, Bryan Menton, Paddy O’Rourke.

“They’ve got plenty of championship experience at this stage and it’s really up to them to drive this on and question where it’s going, what are they doing this for? They’re at an age where you have to question that.”

Even with an injury hit team, Meath are confident of progressing beyond Wicklow’s challenge in Navan on Sunday. Presuming they can get past Wexford or Westmeath then, a fourth straight Leinster final with Dublin would await. Across those three finals, Meath have lost by a cumulative 26 points. Bray, remarkably, remains upbeat.

“In fairness, that’s why last year Dublin performed so well; they always gave us massive respect. They could see we were maybe progressing and they kind of said: ‘Well, we’ve got to put in our best performance of the year.’ And they did and fair play to them. We just have to get back to that level.”

As for the challenge of Wicklow, the joint worst team in the country based on league standings, Bray shrugged.

“Look, I’m too experienced now at this stage to take anyone lightly. Wicklow will present a huge challenge but, at the end of the day, it’s a championship match in Páirc Tailteann. For us, a home championship match is huge. We haven’t played there in Leinster in something like 20 years.”