Byrne has found the winning mentality

IT might be well known within the game that Shelbourne full-back Sean Byrne comes from good League of Ireland stock, but spend some time in his company in the run-up to Sunday’s final against Sligo Rovers and it becomes apparent there is much more to the 22-year-old Dubliner than an ability to kick a football.

Sean’s father John played for Home Farm, Bohemians, Sligo and St Pat’s but his son reveals that, having previously worked as a plumber, his dad later opted for a surprising career turn and is now a lecturer in sports psychology at the Institute of Technology in Blanchardstown. And Sean himself has reaped the benefits.

“It has been helpful actually,” he said.

“He comes to all the games and he asks me loads of questions, like ‘how would you feel if this happened?’ and ‘what is your mentality there?’. Even going into the Finn Harps game [when Shels won 4-0 to secure promotion], before I went out he said ‘you just need to know what you have to do, visualise what you have to do, visualise winning, visualise going in after the game and being promoted’.

“To be honest, I did visualise all of those things. I visualised us scoring, winning and all the celebrations [and, just for the record, Sean said that, no, he didn’t have a similar conversation with his dad before Shels lost the title-decider against Cork City].”

And, again, like father, like son, Sean Byrne is now taking his own first steps on an unusual career path outside football, having just begun a course in Addiction Studies in Maynooth.

“To be honest, I always had an interest in helping people,” he explained.

“Then I heard of a person who did the course and she said it was absolutely brilliant. She now has a job in a youth programme, working with young people growing up in circumstances that aren’t the best. I thought it was an absolutely brilliant idea and she advised me on doing the course.

“So I just started it in September and I’m hoping for something like that when I come out at the end of it.”

Byrne reckons that sport has an important role to play in keeping youngsters on an even keel.

“Sport kept me grounded throughout my whole life. I was never a loose cannon of a kid anyway. Through my schoolboy years, I was always very dedicated. Some teenagers go off the wall, but I think sport has helped me in the long run. I don’t think I would have made it this far if I had not been as dedicated as I was.”

Just how dedicated emerges with the further revelation that Sean Byrne is a Type 1 diabetic, a condition which meant he was never likely to be one of those who would risk his football career through over-indulgence.

“I am actually insulin dependent, so I would inject myself with insulin every day of my life. Don’t get me wrong, I can have a drink.

“They would advise me to drink Coors Light, because there is no sugar in it. But you can’t go out on the binge every week like any other lads would.

“It anything, it has helped in my football career, because they say to be active as much as you can. So to play at the level that I play at has kept my insulin and diabetes in total and utter control. I would guarantee you that a few of the lads don’t know I am a diabetic.

“Nothing ever happens to me. I control it well. Larry Byrne, the physio, always has the bottle of Lucozade in his bag if anything ever did go wrong. If my sugar levels were to drop in a game, I would need the bottle of Lucozade to get them back up very quickly. But it has never happened.”

As for Sunday’s big game against Shels, Sean will once again avail of his father’s psychological insights but there’s motivation too of a more fresh and painful kind, stemming from that last minute loss of the title to Cork.

“The disappointment of being in that dressing room and listening to the Cork lads, who deservedly were celebrating in the next dressing room, is not a nice feeling,” he said.

“We don’t want to feel that way on Sunday.”