GAA’s love/hate relationship with the auld savage thirst

At a time of great volatility in the world, there is considerable comfort in the few reliables we encounter during this extended period of reflection in the GAA calendar.

The Hardship Index has soared again as the county man’s burden hits new record highs. The Sacrifices and The Demands remain the only known stocks to keep climbing.

In his market report, former Meath footballer Joe Sheridan assured us the county man now “nearly detested” the games, such are the “huge commitments”.

And retired Tipp hurler Kieran Bergin lamented the drinking bans and reminded us of the one true constant of GAA life: the belief there can be no Savage Hunger without a savage thirst.

Kieran had bigger gripes, in terms of the hardship, the time involved and the difficulties with expenses and whatnot. But, as usual, the savage thirst was the encumbrance that got debate rumbling, that tugged the heartstrings of a nation aghast at the notion of being ‘off the drink’.

Padraig Harrington had a nice line on the Off The Ball paper review last Sunday about a golfer’s sense of psychological wellbeing. “You have to work very hard to get the right reality in your head.”

Brunell basketball coach Francis O’Sullivan spoke last weekend about the need for players to be “invested” in their basketball career. “To live it 12 months of the year. It’s a culture thing.”

In the wave of puzzlement and sympathy that gripped the nation this week, there is probably a clue as to why drinking bans are proposed in the first place. In a culture sodden with drink, it’s the easiest way to deliver a reality check. To at least make a player believe he is fully invested.

But all the thirst and hardship is only worth it if you win the All-Ireland, concluded Bergin, who did win the All-Ireland but still says he’d have gone nowhere near hurling if he had his time over.

Among the lucky majority, I was counting my blessings never to have offered anything to interest the county when the text landed.

An unusual piece of correspondence from a county man. “Thanks again for allowing me time to say my few words. Really appreciate it.”

In an era when saying a few words to a press man might rank up there among the worst of The Sacrifices and The Demands — not as bad as going off the drink but near enough — this was a jolt into the unknown.

A county man grateful for the opportunity to tell his story in last Monday’s paper. To deliver a few messages.

But then retired Kerry hurler John ‘Tweek’ Griffin seemed to be coming at a lot of things differently when we chatted.

There wasn’t much talk of The Sacrifices and The Demands. In many ways, Tweek was selling the Savage Hunger as a superior way of life. In a place like Kerry, where hurling isn’t the glamour route, he has seen wildly different

levels of commitment to the cause. And he was inclined towards the view that total commitment was the most favourable option. In digging as much out of yourself as you are able, the rewards will present themselves, Tweek was certain, even if you never win any medals.

“Work hard and enjoy what the game has to offer you,” was the central thrust of his message.

So he probably wasn’t terribly impressed this week with all the fretting over the Hardship Index, just at the time he got the opportunity to say his piece, and was doing his level best to interest and motivate young Kerry hurlers who had something to offer the county.

Tweek encountered plenty of the drink during his time as a Kerry hurler. He has seen a great thirst for drink and an urgency to slake that thirst that kept men out into the early hours the night before Kerry matches.

He stayed in and by the end of his time there were many more Kerrymen staying in with him.

“The real aspect that annoyed me is the lack of appreciation you get for doing it,” said Bergin of The Sacrifices and The Demands this week on Sportsjoe’s GAA Hour, following his interview in the Irish Daily Star.

“More and more lads are asking ‘What’s in it for me?’” felt Eddie Brennan, talking on 2FM’s Game On.

Maybe an All-Ireland medal changes your perspective. Maybe it is life on centre stage, in the middle of a bubble.

While perhaps pressing your nose against a glass ceiling allows a certain clarity.

But Tweek wasn’t so much looking for appreciation for what he had given, as finding much to appreciate in what the game had given him.

He told with glee of the time he was offered a sponsored car.

He remembered the thrill of a call-up to the All-Star trip. And the surreal honour of

sitting in a Texas bar with a bunch of the finest hurlers in the country — men like Kieran Bergin.

They were hardly thirsty that night. But as Chris

Jericho and Buff Egan might put it, Tweek was ‘drinking it in, man’. And he knew he deserved a reward for his investment.

Maybe, with all the psychologists working in the GAA now, work is needed on another aspect of what goes into players’ heads. To persuade them of a reality that Tweek seems to get instinctively.

“I played a game for so long that I loved so much. I felt very lucky to be a Kerry hurler.”