'All the windows in the cars were rolled down to keep my eyes open'

Maurice O’Brien probably has a better perspective than most on Sunday's Allianz Hurling League semi-final between Limerick and Dublin in Nowlan Park.

'All the windows in the cars were rolled down to keep my eyes open'

Maurice O’Brien probably has a better perspective than most on Sunday's Allianz Hurling League semi-final between Limerick and Dublin in Nowlan Park.

Now retired, he did hurl for both counties, after all.

After a stellar underage career with Limerick work took him to the capital. Driving up and down to training wasn’t an attractive prospect in the long term and he switched from green to sky blue in 2009.

“The reality for me was that I was on the Limerick panel for a few years without cementing a starting place for myself, that’s the truth of it. I was travelling up and down from Dublin to Limerick for a share of that and eventually the reality has to sink in.

Do you want to continue driving for four or five hours every time you go to a training session, or do you take your career seriously and move on that way? So I gave myself an ultimatum.

O’Brien points out that he was “in for two years, out for two years” with Limerick at senior level before then-manager Richie Bennis came calling when he was still in Dublin.

“I said I’d go for it, and I played a few league games in 2007, 2008. But when I made up my mind making that phone call to Richie to tell him I was going to leave the set up . . . that wasn’t an easy phone call.

“I have great time for Richie, he gave me the opportunity to come back, after all, but you have to do what you see as right for yourself as well.”

And central to that was the travel: “That’s harder than the training, to be honest.

“If you’re living 20 minutes away from the training session you’re going to get better and better.

“I remember when I was travelling up and down the roadworks were going on in Naas, and you’d be heading past with all the windows in the cars rolled down to keep your eyes open.

“Something had to give. Does it mean moving back to Limerick where there’s no job for you, or continue travelling up and down when you’re not getting the benefit of the training, sitting in a car for two hours after the session?

“You’re not playing your best hurling, you’re not at home, you’re neither one place nor the other.”

It gave O’Brien some sympathy for the Mayo footballers, who have so many places based in Dublin training sessions are held there for that group.

“Nobody thinks of those things in the summer, that’s the thing. As someone said to me once, when you cross the white line if you’re carrying a small niggle or whatever, it doesn’t matter - you’ve declared yourself fully fit and nobody cares if you’re a bit tired or there’s something else wrong.

It has an impact. I know a lot of the Mayo lads train in Dublin, as you say, but it can’t be good if you have half your team training in Dublin and the other half back home in Mayo. If you’re the only one travelling then you have no option, you have to do it. And I wasn’t the only one to do it either, in fairness.

There were other aspects to hurling for Dublin. The face isn’t as well known, for instance.

“As a Limerick hurler you’d be recognised all over the county, which wouldn’t be the case in Dublin. And that’s not always a bad thing, either - if you were out socialising in Dublin you wouldn’t have people watching you to see what you were at. Obviously, the Dublin footballers have it differently.

“There are other differences. In terms of refereeing, I found the Dublin referees a lot stricter than in Limerick, where a lot more would be left go, particularly in championship games.

“As for the standard, the Dublin club championship is a very high standard of hurling - you have Cuala, obviously, Ballyboden, Lucan, Kilmacud. Those are very strong clubs, and they have big numbers, but in comparison with other club championships it’s certainly very strong - Cuala have proved that.”

In terms of further comparisons, O’Brien points to expectations in Limerick and the potential in Dublin.

“I think expectations have to be high in Limerick - they’ve built that from a base - and a low base, to be fair. The whole plan was to get to this stage and it may have happened sooner than expected, but it’s worked and has to be continued now.

“Sustaining that is the challenge now, to ensure that you don’t just produce the one crop of players.

“With Dublin the potential is there, definitely. If and when Dublin get to the level where they’re competing in and winning All-Irelands you could have a situation where you’ve created a monster, like their footballers.

“Is that possible? It is. Hurling is definitely on the up, and it’s certainly cool to be playing hurling. The potential in the city is massive in terms of becoming a real force. In the Anthony Daly years we were close to that breakthrough and the current group isn’t far off it either.”

Was he surprised they beat Tipperary last weekend?

“You’d be surprised a Dublin team would go to Thurles and beat Tipperary, but have they the quality to beat Tipperary? They have. They have the personnel to beat any team on their day, but that win in Thurles is huge, as it would be for any county team.”

Still, Limerick must be favourites for tomorrow.

“I think they have to be - not only are they All-Ireland champions, the form they’ve shown all year makes them favourites.

“Does that guarantee them anything? It doesn’t.

"The one thing I see in Limerick’s league so far is that though some lads are injured and others were rested, they’ve brought through three or four players as well to contend for starting places.

"That’s a very healthy situation to be in and I wouldn’t be surprised if John Kiely doesn’t start a couple of them in the first round of the championship.

He seems to have a policy of ‘if you have the jersey you hold it’ so that’ll make training in Limerick very interesting in the next couple of weeks - and it’ll make tomorrow very interesting as well.

Would it be possible to find out which county O’Brien will be shouting for?

“It would,” he laughs, “But you’re not going to ask me that.”

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