Swashbuckling star Austin Gleeson determined to put team duties first

Hailing from Mount Sion, the gung-ho is part of what he is, but Austin Gleeson maintains he is learning to be more of a team player.

Ken McGrath was such an influential figure in his formative years, that it’s understandable the 20-year-old has imagined himself as a swashbuckling kind of player.

At times, it might be at odds with Waterford’s considered game but Gleeson is learning to knit his own natural style with what is asked of him as a spoke in the Déise wheel.

“I’m trying not to have as many off-the-cuff shots but I’m really enjoying trying to learn how to be a full-time team player. If I didn’t have a shot in the game and we won it, it wouldn’t really bother me. That’s the way it’s gone now.

“I know in the last couple of games the only times of stupidity (for me) have been the sidelines and I’m after looking at them myself personally and the lads have told me different ways about improving that. It’s more about leaving the ball go and not doing stupid stuff again. It’s working.”

Gleeson doesn’t feel claustrophobic or bounded by Waterford’s style. There is always room for expression, he says. “From a personal point of view, I’m really enjoying playing for the system. The lads are saying ‘you have to do this role’ but after 10 or 15 minutes in the game, once you are settled into the role, it’s just open freedom and you work off your instinct then.

“Everyone feels the same way. There’s nobody feeling trapped inside a box of a system.

“If something goes wrong on the field, it’s the players on the field... he (Derek McGrath) really leaves a lot of it in our own hands to try and react on the field the way things are going. If they see something, they will tell us but if we see something we think that we can help them with... it’s a 50-50.”

Gleeson does admit he can no longer rely on youthful exuberance when it comes to pointing sideline cuts. “I don’t practice them as much as I should have, because when I started to do it, it kind of came naturally to me. It was just like luck. But now I expect to put them over every time and I probably put too much pressure on myself to put them over.

“Derek is always saying, ‘Do them, do them, do them’, and even if you’re watching a game every time you look over at the management side of the field, Dan (Shanahan) is over beside me to help me what way to go and how to do it. They’re never shouting at me to leave the ball in or screaming, they’re always trying to encourage me.”

It says plenty about Gleeson’s confidence that he reckons he could still score a goal like his 2014 mazy solo effort against Cork even against more stacked defences.

“I don’t see why you couldn’t, I suppose, because a lot of that goal was between the movement of Brian O’Sullivan and Shane Walsh and they took their men away and a gap just opened up, and I just went through it, so I don’t see why anyone else couldn’t do it.

“It would be harder obviously because there are more defenders around now and everyone’s fit as a fiddle, there is always someone else waiting to hit you.”

At the end of last year, Gleeson spoke about the physical difference between Kilkenny and Waterford in the All-Ireland semi-final. Waterford aren’t lacking so much now, in that department, he believes.

“I suppose from a personal point of view, I have probably been in the gym a lot more because last year against Kilkenny it really showed we needed it, looking at a couple of lads on the team.

“Shane Bennett, Patrick Curran, Tadhg de Burca, we are after upping our muscle mass and the gym is after helping a lot. The help of Gary Walsh and Fergal O’Brien has been massively influential for us.

“That was the main aim during the winter to get the pre-season of gym into us.

“Thankfully, it’s paying off for us and we are all feeling fit and stronger now.”