Jackie Tyrrell back with spring in his step

He thought about it. Let the idea roll around for a bit. Then he let it fly off with the rest of 2015. Jackie Tyrrell faces this season with a fight to get back into the Kilkenny starting team. Retirement? Considered and rejected. The foot injury that wrecked last year is fully healed.

“The screw is staying in (his foot) and there would be no complications. It’s great, training is going great. I was back training the second week of January and haven’t missed a training session since so it’s all good.

“It’s a different challenge, really; it’s really about the basics and getting back there. I know I have a lot of work to do. I had a very inactive off-season last year so my fitness levels probably aren’t where they normally would be.

“But I’ve been working extremely hard the last while and I think that they’ll come pretty quickly. There’s no real long-term looking at it, it’s just week by week.” Incredibly, Tyrrell is hunting a tenth All-Ireland medal.

“That would be great too, but it’s so far away and it’s up there with your three in a rows and Septembers and All-Irelands and that. It would be brilliant, it really would be great, but I didn’t come back for a tenth All-Ireland medal. I came back because I think I have something to offer and I don’t want to be sitting at home scratching myself.”

He was idle long enough - Tyrrell says he “didn’t do anything for September, October November”, which is a fair break, particularly as he points out a three-week break “can be huge” for some intercounty players.

It all means he’s taking every opportunity to show he’s ready.

“Any kind of time you are on a training field and that, you’ve got to show and display to the boys that this guy is well able to give them the confidence that he’s able to do a job for them, and contribute to them, whether it’s a league game, a challenge match, training or a gym session ….whatever. You have just got to show the lads that.”

Would he be happy with a bit-part role, such as Henry Shefflin’s in his final season?

“I’m not really conscious of that, Henry is Henry and he’s his own man. Obviously whatever he wanted he got and all that.

“I want to play as much as I possibly can, but obviously I’d like to be playing more than that. I might not even get those couple of minutes.

I’m really just taking it day by day, training session by training session, match by match, week by week. We’ll see where that goes.

“Even if you are not in the panel, and you know you are there or thereabouts or you are an under-21, and you see someone like that. I’m sure there’s lads that Ger Alyward hurled with that aren’t even on the panel thinking ‘why can’t that be me? I played U21 and I was as good as Ger, I was better than him,’ you know that way?

“There’s nothing like a perfect example to give lads a bit of motivation. You could be so close but psychologically you could be thinking, ‘God, am I ever going to get a chance?’

“Something like that could just show you that you are not that far away. Then you would think ‘would Ger Alyward be there if it wasn’t for the retirements or the Ballyhale lads getting him the exposure in the league, and he put his hand up.

“As I said, there’s always opportunities cropping up and you just have to seize them when they come around.”

Last year’s All-Ireland was an opportunity he couldn’t seize, but the big James Stephens man appreciates what he’s experienced in past Septembers.

“The All-Ireland was obviously different because I wasn’t playing, but it made me realise how lucky I was to play in all those All-Irelands before— even the ones I’ve lost.

“They are huge occasions and heartbreaking. I still remember how lucky I was to be a part of it and to actually play, to take stock of that.

“Not playing would give you that emphasis; ‘God I’d love to be back out there again’ and that. It was different looking on, but you can take things from it.”

They’re hunting another three in a row this year. A nice little carrot is his description. “It is nice, and there’s a small bit of relevance given to it. I don’t think players pay as much (heed) … it’s certainly a nice little carrot if you won three in a row, absolutely.

“But I definitely think it’s something to look back on. It’s probably made more of by yourselves; the magnitude of it.

“People say now, ‘oh God the three in a row was great’ but five seconds later you are thinking of what you are going to have dinner or something like that.

“It’s nice to say that, but how much it holds in the real world, I don’t know.”