Noel Hickey: No nonsense, no problem, no equal

The end came with a telephone conversation on Friday evening.

Thirteen years ago, the man on the other end of the phone gave Noel Hickey his start in the inter-county business and Hickey owed Brian Cody notification of its finish.

It wasn’t a long chat, because that isn’t his way, but it was one of the formalities that had to be addressed.

You don’t win nine All-Ireland medals without doing the small things properly.

One of the other formalities involved the calls from reporters...

Telephone conversation extract no. 1.

Me: Noel?

NH: Well, Michael, how are you?

Me: You made a decision on your future but I didn’t see it on your Twitter feed.

NH: Ha, you won’t, either.

There’s something fitting, though in one of the great careers coming to an end in a crackling few minutes routed through a telecoms mast situated somewhere in Kilkenny, a conversation between two men accustomed to the black and amber number three jersey. If it took a while to filter beyond the county’s borders, then that’s appropriate, too. It took time for word of Hickey to seep into the general hurling consciousness.

He came to the senior team from the 1999 U21 side, a team he captained to the All-Ireland title at 18; Hickey postponed a hernia operation to line out for the Cats’ seniors and collected a first All-Ireland senior medal in 2000, before he was 20. Without doubt, he was the most effective full-back of the last decade. Go back to the sixties and Michael Maher of Tipperary embodied the job specifications for someone wearing the number three jersey: the creation of a no-go area directly in front of your own goal. In the following decade, players like Pat Hartigan of Limerick and Martin O’Doherty of Cork redefined the position, because the game had changed and there wasn’t a need to hold out a full-forward who wanted to flatten the keeper.

Christy Ring told O’Doherty to play like a full-forward, and that change of mindset liberated full-backs forever. Swashbuckling players like Brian Lohan and Diarmuid O’Sullivan attacked the ball and gave their teammates further upfield — not to mention the supporters — a shot of adrenaline.

Telephone conversation extract no. 2.

Me: Hard decision to turn your back on winning a 10th?

NH: Ah no, not when you’ve your mind made up.

Me: Media stuff so, I suppose? Will you end up joining Eddie on the couch on The Sunday Game?

NH: If I could catch him I might try to bump him off the end of it...

Hickey didn’t play like Lohan and O’Sullivan. A lot of the time, the team in front of him wasn’t set up to allow him to do so; for much of his career, prowling the edge of the Kilkenny square Peter Barry and then Brian Hogan outside him were withdrawn, closer to him than previous centre-backs might have played, cutting off space in front of the Cats’ full-forward line.

But in the closer confines that resulted, Hickey was superb. The awkward days were few and far between. Ger ‘Redser’ O’Grady gave the Kilkenny man a miserable afternoon in Nowlan Park in the 2003 league, and in the 2004 All-Ireland final, Brian Corcoran had too much guile for Hickey.

In the inevitable rematches, however, Hickey was the master, dominating both men when the opportunity came.

A friend cannily pointed out on Saturday that Hickey’s most significant performance was one he never gave: missing from the 2005 All-Ireland semi-final against Galway with a heart virus, Hickey’s absence allowed the Tribesmen to score five goals. He recovered from that serious health concern to add another six All-Ireland medals.

Hickey’s demeanour added to the reputation. He was small for a modern full-back — there was clear daylight between him and six feet — and wasn’t particularly broad; he was brisk and efficient, rather than flamboyant.

He told me that he didn’t know where his medals were and that he never spoke to opponents, though he could recall a casual comment from Eugene Cloonan about a decade beforehand.

He didn’t figure largely in the media — hence his aside about his former teammate and The Sunday Game — and the fact he headed back out to the farm after games added to the mystique.

Even though Hickey pocketed nine All-Ireland medals, of course, he was overshadowed a little by the other chap on the Kilkenny team who matched him along the way. Ballyhale man. Redhead. The name will come to me. Mentioning Ballyhale and Dunnamaggin, by the way...

Telephone conversation extract no. 3.

Me: And the club?

NH: Oh yeah, things went desperate last year.

Me: I mean, are you carrying on?

NH: Oh I am, it’ll be good to get stuck back into it now with Dunnamaggin for the next couple of years. That’s always been the aim.

And with that, a shiver of fear ran through the club forwards in Kilkenny hurling.

No need for modern telecommunications to spread that word.

*[e-mail] Twitter: MikeMoynihanEx