What Doesn’t Kill You…
Talking Balls Comments
“People were criticising Mickey Harte and the players. We decided to regroup and do this for ourselves. That motto stood us in good stead. As a player I try to avoid the hype and the buzz, because there wasn’t too much of it when we were in Drogheda (for the qualifier game against Louth) and Tyrone couldn’t sell 700 tickets for the game.
“Once the players started to get criticised they really showed their true colours. They are winners at all levels and when you get that sort of criticism, you are going to come out of your corner fighting. When you had that many people willing to put their bodies on the line in training, you always knew that something good was going to happen. And it happened.”
The Moy clubman praised Fergal McCann, for the major role he has played in developing a conditioning programme for the players. “In every other year, including ’05 when we won the All-Ireland, we had no conditioning, no weights, and no programme at all. That has been the big change this year. There has been a lot more attention to detail in training.
“Fergal has been taking extra sessions since January for guys who felt they weren’t up to the pace. I was injured for most of the league, but trained twice a week in the dark nights of January, February and March. We have squad sessions on Tuesday and Thursday and Fergal takes extra sessions (locally) on Monday and Wednesday. Anyone behind in their fitness goes to him these nights.”
