Éanna
12/03/2002, 12:56 PM
"Junior hurlers" You know you're a junior hurler when.
1. You spend all winter on the beer speculating on who will be brought in to manage the junior hurling team next year.
2. The hardest tackle you will make all year is in an indoor soccer match in January.
3. When you break your borther-in-law's leg.
4. There are 35 at training under lights on a bitter February night (unfit but enthusiastic) - the average for Augsut is 7 (unfit, sick of training, reading Teagasc manuals and making silage)
5. The club treasurer spends some time at the AGM lamenting the yearly cost of running a club and especially the bill for hurleys; a month later, the team is being urged to "give 'em timber lads - we have plenty of hurleys on the sideline..."
6. When you go for a pick-up, you tap the ball at least twice on the hurley before you fumble it.
7. Ground hurling is for juveniles and camogie players.
8. The full forward has his son and grand nephew in the corners.
9. The grand nephew is two years older.
10. For a 2.30 throw-in, you start packing your gearbag at 2.40 and still manage to be on the field before the referee even arrives.
11. You can get a match called off because your star player is playing divisional under-16 the following week.
12. Your tight marking corner back never gives an inch - except of course, when the ball gets inside his own 50 and he charges out after it with all the other backs, forgetting that the other team are even on the field.
13. Your goalie lets in a sitter every second game - this usually happens after you have scored 5 points from play to reel in a difficult half-time deficit.
14. Or in the first minute if it is a final.
15. Your full-forward can't score but "he's a good man to bust up the play".
16. Your centre-forward can't score either but "he'll stop a good man from hurling".
17. Your championship is either a round robin that requires you to play six league games to eliminate one team, or a knockout starting in October.
18. Any members of your panel who claim to have back injuries are either lazy or completely daft. Unless you can see blood, bruises or bandages, they are making it up.
19. Before every match, the forwards are told to stay wide and not bunch - but this is not what happens. The only time any forward goes wide is to take a sideline cut or if they are looking for water.
20. Your backs play from behind waving a hurley with one hand while resting the other on the forward's back - this is why all your scores and all their scores come from frees.
21. You can't field a team during the fortnight of the Leaving Cert.
22. The more people instruct you to "let fly if you don't get it up the first time", the more you ignore them.
23. Your left-corner-back
24. Ditto No.7.
25. Your star player always has one other brother "that was even better but he couldn't stay off the drink".
1. You spend all winter on the beer speculating on who will be brought in to manage the junior hurling team next year.
2. The hardest tackle you will make all year is in an indoor soccer match in January.
3. When you break your borther-in-law's leg.
4. There are 35 at training under lights on a bitter February night (unfit but enthusiastic) - the average for Augsut is 7 (unfit, sick of training, reading Teagasc manuals and making silage)
5. The club treasurer spends some time at the AGM lamenting the yearly cost of running a club and especially the bill for hurleys; a month later, the team is being urged to "give 'em timber lads - we have plenty of hurleys on the sideline..."
6. When you go for a pick-up, you tap the ball at least twice on the hurley before you fumble it.
7. Ground hurling is for juveniles and camogie players.
8. The full forward has his son and grand nephew in the corners.
9. The grand nephew is two years older.
10. For a 2.30 throw-in, you start packing your gearbag at 2.40 and still manage to be on the field before the referee even arrives.
11. You can get a match called off because your star player is playing divisional under-16 the following week.
12. Your tight marking corner back never gives an inch - except of course, when the ball gets inside his own 50 and he charges out after it with all the other backs, forgetting that the other team are even on the field.
13. Your goalie lets in a sitter every second game - this usually happens after you have scored 5 points from play to reel in a difficult half-time deficit.
14. Or in the first minute if it is a final.
15. Your full-forward can't score but "he's a good man to bust up the play".
16. Your centre-forward can't score either but "he'll stop a good man from hurling".
17. Your championship is either a round robin that requires you to play six league games to eliminate one team, or a knockout starting in October.
18. Any members of your panel who claim to have back injuries are either lazy or completely daft. Unless you can see blood, bruises or bandages, they are making it up.
19. Before every match, the forwards are told to stay wide and not bunch - but this is not what happens. The only time any forward goes wide is to take a sideline cut or if they are looking for water.
20. Your backs play from behind waving a hurley with one hand while resting the other on the forward's back - this is why all your scores and all their scores come from frees.
21. You can't field a team during the fortnight of the Leaving Cert.
22. The more people instruct you to "let fly if you don't get it up the first time", the more you ignore them.
23. Your left-corner-back
24. Ditto No.7.
25. Your star player always has one other brother "that was even better but he couldn't stay off the drink".