Cork giants forced TJ Reid to bulk up

It was Paul Murphy who quipped last year that Kilkenny colleague TJ Reid, who sells animal feed in his day job, looks like ‘he’s eating a few of them himself’.

Reid has bulked up in the last few years, developing a powerful presence and admitting that when he was younger, he used to feel like a boy in a man’s game. It was particularly strong in the late 2000s when he came up against Cork’s Gardiner, Curran, and Ó hAilpín, one of the most dominant half-back trios ever.

Behind them in Cork’s full-back line was Diarmuid ‘The Rock’ O’Sullivan. Reid, in his early 20s, wouldn’t have been human if he didn’t feel a little intimidated. The penny dropped in his mid-twenties that he needed to muscle up. Doing so has helped him dominate the hurling world for the past two seasons, returning championship hauls of 4-32 and 4-53 in 2014 and 2015.