Tom Condon: ‘Sometimes you have to go to hard places to get rewards’

Tom Condon with his partner, Sarah Carey, and their son, Nicky. Of his time with Limerick, he says: ‘We enjoyed going out and playing the way we wanted to play and winning. You just wanted to do it the whole time. Training or games were never a chore.’ Picture: Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile

That retirement sits easy with Tom Condon doesn’t mean Tom Condon sits easy. Fevered and frenzied he was during last month’s Munster final in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, his first as a Limerick supporter in 14 years.

The previous week he had become a father for the second time when his wife, former Limerick camogie player Sarah Carey — daughter of Ciarán and cousin of Cian Lynch — gave birth to daughter Ellie.

His excitement was just as intense as Limerick reeled in Tipperary in the second half. Were it not for the ticket pod system, he might have barrelled a couple more supporters out of the way, as he did forwards when wearing the green jersey.

“I gave John Kiely a text afterwards that I was hurling nearly every ball. I was worse than playing. People around me didn’t know what to make of me.

“When you know what these lads are capable of and are such good friends with them, you become more emotionally charged.”

Even 12 points down to Tipperary, Condon’s faith in his old comrades never wavered. Even in the bad old days, he always trusted in Limerick.

Claiming two Celtic Crosses went beyond his imagination, and he looks back on the strike he and others took against Justin McCarthy 11 years ago as the bottom the county had to hit to get where they wanted to go.

“I always believed, if we got to a final, that we would win an All-Ireland... It was hard to see in 2010 but, the thing with Justin, we didn’t do it lightly.

“We wanted the best for Limerick and we wanted to progress, and it wasn’t happening and, if we didn’t do it quickly, we would drop down the list quickly.

“Things weren’t being done right and, when that happens, your heart isn’t in it.

Now, looking back on it, we can say we were striving for success and knew the preparations had to be right to do that. Sometimes you have to go to hard places to get the rewards.

Before stepping away in January, Condon had been the last of the strikers in the squad. He and fellow full-back Richie McCarthy represented a different time and, as he laughs, a different size of hurler too.

“These young fellas are accustomed to gyming from a young age and getting the right nutrition. I don’t think we lifted weights properly until 2011 when Donal O’Grady and Jerry Wallace came in. We were 23, 24 at the time, so we had missed four or five years of proper conditioning that these boys have.

“Unfortunately, I have this metabolism that was prone to put on weight, so it was harder for me to be competing with these lads and I had extra runs to do. But I loved going to training. There was such a buzz; it was like a drug.”

McCarthy previously spoke in these pages about some of the baggage older Limerick players carried. Condon looks back on sports psychologist Caroline Currid’s introduction to the group in 2017 as pivotal in lightening that load.

“She steadied the ship from a mental point of view. A lot of us had things playing on our minds about what had happened in the past. We used to play on adrenaline and emotion but, when you do that, you can play in peaks and troughs. Whereas if you keep calm and stick to the system, which we started to do from 2017 on, it doesn’t matter if you’re 10 points up or 10 points down, the performance will always be there.

“We were psychologically tuned in from 2017. Playing off the cuff would have only got us so far.

“I said to lads after we lost to Kilkenny in 2017 that Limerick were going to win an All-Ireland in the next four or five years. I didn’t expect it would be the following year. The talent coming through was so ridiculous it had to happen.”

It was that competition for places he describes as “simply cutthroat” and a series of niggling injuries that made up his mind to bid adieu earlier this year. Having just turned 33, he had contemplated stepping aside prior to the start of last year’s championship but, as it was only going to last seven weeks tops and having received feedback from Kiely and Currid, he elected to stay on.

An achilles heel issue cleared up by the Munster final win over Waterford, but by then Kiely’s panel was all but rock solid. A year earlier, he had been Limerick’s best defender in their Division 1 success, only for a groin problem to flare up heading into the championship.

That glory of 2018, his catch from Joe Canning’s last-gasp free meaning there wouldn’t a repeat of 1994, should have been enough, but he couldn’t leave.

“There was a bit of a bounce in your step after it. I probably knew my time was running out and I wanted to give it a lash and have no regrets and leave everything out there.

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“When you’re part of something special like that, you don’t want to let go and you knew there was going to be more success. But then you didn’t want to be there for the free ride either; you want to be playing. That was a big thing for me. I was competing with lads 10 years younger than me, absolute robots built like tanks.”

Allowing him to spend more time with Sarah and their eldest child Nicky, the lockdown turned out to be great preparation for life after Limerick. There was time to reflect on the catch too.

“Managers pull their hair out when more than one lad goes up for a ball, but there was so much at stake you wanted to do anything to get that ball away. It was now or never.”

And how far he had come from a small club like Knockaderry.

“At that time, it was harder because the fellas in the senior clubs were exposed to senior hurling. You had to give it your all the whole time and try and stand out. Now, regardless of the club, they’re giving everyone a chance in the academy. You do have a lot of late developers too and they don’t want them to fall through the net either.”

Living in Patrickswell, where he works for Phil Bennis and where Aaron Gillane’s mother, Mary, minds Nicky, Condon keeps in regular contact with his old team-mates. He may be out of the circle, but he knows what propels them now.

“We enjoyed going out and playing the way we wanted to play and winning. You just wanted to do it the whole time. Training or games were never a chore... There was always laughing, but when you were on the field everything was done hard. Fellas loved getting belted and being physically fecked at the end of training. That’s a great feeling.

“Gearóid Hegarty said recently the players are living the time of their lives and you want to keep it going as much as possible.

Because when it’s gone, it’s gone. There’s no going back.

“I was glad to be part of a group that brought Limerick hurling to the pinnacle from being beaten by a cricket score by Tipperary [in 2009]. It was just brilliant. Long may it last.”