Noel McGrath and Stephen Bennett - hurling's elegant survivors

Noel McGrath and Stephen Bennett continue to defy time and injury, reaching milestones and rewriting records.

Noel McGrath is set to make his 74th championship appearance for Tipperary against Cork while Stephen Bennett will make his 100th league and championship appearance for Waterford against Clare. Pics: Sportsfile

They probably shouldn’t be here. Reaching milestones and rewriting records as they are.

Courting record and milestone status means their numbers are obviously impressive. Their numbers are in spite of their stories. Their stories have the effect of making the numbers and our focus on them seem irrelevant and silly.

Four hip surgeries by the age of 20. A cancer diagnosis at the age of 24. Life threatened to intervene and take hurling from them. Their off-field opponents were faced down the same as they’ve done countless defenders.

At 2pm tomorrow, Stephen Bennett will make his 100th appearance for Waterford across League and Championship. From 4pm, and should he be used off the bench as expected, Noel McGrath will climb to 74 championship appearances and set a new Tipperary benchmark in the process.

Michael Ryan rewinds to 2009. Noel’s first season with the Tipp seniors. There was a weights session playing out in Thurles. The 18-year-old was attempting to keep iron pace with clubmate and thirty-something Micheál Webster.

“If you could have seen this young fella, just out of secondary school, pushing weights to try and compete with Webster, a fully grown, developed man,” recalls Ryan, the former Tipp manager and selector.

Sixteen years later, McGrath is still pushing the envelope. Still uninterested by age and the inter-county lifecycle. Still the same ferocious competitor.

He was introduced last Sunday with 42 minutes on the clock. Just his fourth sighting of the year. The scoreboard read 1-17 to 2-14. Limerick had already wiped a three-point interval advantage. Limerick were coming.

In came McGrath to settle the house. A record-equaling 73rd championship appearance - joining Brendan Cummins at the top of the tree - in this his 17th season.

His first possession of 13 saw him angle over a near-impossible point from close to the Ryan Stand sideline. From there, he assisted a Seamus Kennedy point, had a secondary assist for a Darragh McCarthy point, and issued the first pass in that glittering sequence for the second goal of his younger brother.

His sole indiscretion was to be penalised for a throw ball. He made amends by wrapping Will O’Donoghue for the throw ball that delivered the equalising free.

“Crikey, he didn’t waste a ball,” eulogised TJ Ryan on this week’s Irish Examiner Dalo hurling podcast.

Outstanding Tipp servants have moved on in recent years. Others were moved on. Noel, 35 later this year, has remained and was kept.

“Noel’s game intelligence is superior to most,” continues Michael Ryan. “What Noel possesses is what fewest have; that ability to slow down a game that is running at 100 miles an hour and see what others cannot, that ability to take control of a game running at 100 miles an hour.

“He has been doing that since he came in. For the crossfield pass to Seamus Kennedy to set up a score we badly needed, go back to his 2010 pass across his right shoulder to Lar Corbett for the All-Ireland final goal.” 

Ryan was in the Tipp backroom the 2015 season when McGrath battled outside the whitewash. In April of that year, he felt a lump and was diagnosed a few weeks later with testicular cancer. Surgery, chemotherapy, and a miraculous return all within four months.

“What Noel went through, it would show you how vulnerable you can feel. It would also make you feel privileged such was his recovery. That experience, I am sure it is a driver is his longevity.

“But also knowing Noel, he just loves playing. I've seen him play first-round county football championship games with Loughmore, and there might be no more than 100 watching, and he's as enthused about that game as any game he ever played with Tipp.” 

Stephen Bennett is somewhat back on McGrath’s numbers. The five-year age gap means he could yet claw back the deficit. If he wasn’t supposed to be still hurling at 29, you wouldn’t count against him still going at 34.

Two hip surgeries at 17, two more at 20. Bennett will require a double-hip replacement whenever he does finish. He’s long known that. He’s constantly in pain. That’s long been the case.

A championship debut in 2014, but not a championship first-team regular until 2019. And yet here he is with a total of 38-546 (hat tip to Tomás McCarthy for the figure) and on the precipice of making his 100th appearance. Within that have been 40 championship appearances.

“I was told November 2023 that I’d no cartilage left in the hips, I’ve arthritis in both, and the right hip is out of the socket. There’s a lot of stuff going on,” Bennett told the Smaller Fish podcast earlier this year.

He had himself retired around four times during the most recent off-season. A meeting with Peter Queally in Dungarvan’s Park Hotel coaxed him round.

His training is significantly curtailed. To be able to do more he must constantly do less. He hates being in the gym on his own, spinning a bike on his own, and running up and down the sideline on his own. It is for Sunday that his stubbornness brings him back.

“I was told I had €10,000 left in the bank and every time I run that money is being spent. And when that is gone, I am getting hip replacements. This is year three since then. I don’t know how much money I’ve left but I’ll keep going!

“I’ve a load of stubbornness and ignorance and that’s the one thing they can’t test. I am going to play as long as I can.” 

Impressive numbers, though not a patch on the two stories behind them.