Huw Lawlor: TJ Reid's attitude and professionalism an example for Kilkenny players

Kilkenny full-back Lawlor is not complaining about the four-week gap to the All-Ireland semi-finals. 

Now 37, TJ Reid won his 14th Leinster title with the victory over Galway on Sunday. Pic: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

Huw Lawlor has hailed the longevity of TJ Reid as the 37-year-old claimed his 14th Leinster SHC medal on Sunday.

The seven-time All-Ireland winner and seven-time All Star was only second to Lawlor as Kilkenny’s best player in the victory over Galway and the defender was generous in his praise for the elder stateman of the team.

“Sure, he's a class apart, you know what I mean? You can forget about his age or whatever. The example he sets there in terms of work-rate and stuff like that, it's phenomenal, so it is.

“He's such a professional in terms of the way he sets up and the way he goes at it. He's a super player, his attitude and his work rate is top class, and I think that's what drives it on for him.” 

Two-time All Star Lawlor himself is playing some of the best hurling of his career as much as he is keen to play it down. “Look, that kind of thing comes in fits and starts, I suppose. You can go through in form and out of form and stuff.

“We're just trying to get through the 70 minutes in the full-back line and try and stop them scoring, and if we can set up our own scores as well, then we'll be happy enough.” 

It might have seemed like a fade-out by Kilkenny but Lawlor had anticipated Galway would have a period of dominance and it manifested itself in an unanswered 1-6 towards the end of the game before The Cats settled themselves to seal the win.

“I suppose for that 55 minutes we probably choked the game and we controlled it well. Look, they were always going to get a purple patch at some stage and we were trying to limit that, but I thought the boys worked very hard all throughout.

“It’s something that's happened to us before and we probably need to manage the game a little bit better from that point of view. But look, we got the scores and we got the kind of few interceptions that we needed to get over the line there.” 

You won’t hear the 29-year-old complaining about the four-week gap to their July 6 All-Ireland semi-final being too long. 

“Four weeks now to get the bodies right and get loads of training in. It's been a very busy six, seven, eight weeks there so it's a good chance to get training and for different lads to try get on to the team.”