The Big Interview: How Barry Coughlan played catch-up to follow his Waterford dreams

Retired Waterford hurler Barry Coughlan only took up the sport at 13, inspired by his teacher Derek McGrath. But like current Déise star Dessie Hutchinson, who spent five years playing professional soccer before hurling, Coughlan confounded the odds to rise to the top of the game

QUIET LEADER: A lead accountant by profession, Barry Coughlan would go on to be that steady, almost anonymous, class of citizen that every county team has and needs.’ Picture: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

It can take one late developer to see the real promise in another.

Although we’ve all heard that 12 is too late to take up as technically-challenging a sport as hurling and giving it up in your mid-teens for five years hardly helps your chances of playing county either, the battles Barry Coughlan and Dessie Hutchinson have had on the training ground in Ballygunner in recent seasons would shatter such culturally-ingrained beliefs.