By John Harrington

Tipperary hurler John McGrath was meant to represent Ireland against Scotland in the hurling-shinty international on Saturday, but club commitments means he’ll instead be playing for Loughmore-Castleiney in the Tipperary SFC Semi-Final.

It’s ironic that football commitments should keep him away from hurling, because for the last couple of years the opposite has been the case.

McGrath is a talented dual player and was on the Tipperary team that won the 2011 All-Ireland minor football championship.

Had he chosen to focus on football rather than hurling, he’d almost certainly be a senior inter-county footballer rather than hurler now.

The decision to prioritise hurling over football was a practical one as much as anything else, because last year his body broke down from the exertions of playing both.

A chronic groin injury that ruled him out of last year’s hurling championship for Tipperary was aggravated by kicking football, and McGrath knew the big-ball code would have to be sacrificed if he was to become an elite county hurler.

It’s a testament to his commitment to Loughmore-Castleiney though that he continued to play club football last year despite the injury, even though it meant he couldn’t actually kick the ball and instead had to hand-pass it whenever he won possession.

“Definitely I remember going three full games without kicking one ball,” says McGrath. “It took getting used to. In training, you’d be doing kicking drills and lads would be kinda looking at you, trying a big long handpass. I had to adapt to prolong my career, to give myself every chance to be available.

“I would have been able to play games but everyone knew there was no circumstance where I was going to kick the ball. It was a catch and hand-pass kind of a job. It was awkward, frustrating.

“I just knew that if I went back at it full belt and started kicking ball, in the long run it wasn’t going to be sustainable. I’d only end up being half fit. Not really be able to give my best again. I had to do what was right at myself.

“Years down the line, you don’t want these problems recurring again. It’s a bit too much of a strain on the type of injury I had. I have to manage it. I’m happy enough being able to play away with my club. That will do me for a while.”

McGrath still has to do five or six minutes of prehab exercises on his hip/groin before every training session and match, and so far at least it looks like he’s gotten on top of the injury that ruined his 2015 season.

His decision to focus on hurling has robbed Tipperary football of an outstanding talent, but no-one could say it wasn’t justified after the key role he played in the Premier County’s All-Ireland Hurling Championship winning campaign this year.

For someone playing his first full year of inter-county hurling, McGrath was a revelation.

He was Tipperary’s best player in the League, scoring 1-31, and he was a devastating finisher in the Championship too as he racked up an impressive tally of 5-8 over the course of the five games he played.

“Looking back on it, it was the stuff of dreams," says McGrath. "The whole year. I can’t put it into words.

“I think I made one championship panel the year before. To go from that to playing and winning an All-Ireland is something I’ll never forget.

“I was lucky enough that week on week I was getting picked and getting my chance. We had had a good few Fitzgibbon games coming into that (the League).

“I was probably fitness wise, a bit ahead of a lot of lads. It was brilliant to get those games early in the year, you really get a chance to get your touch and that back in.

“You can't beat playing games. I think the games in the Fitzgibbon really stood to me and thankfully the lads kept picking me then after that.”

McGrath enjoyed such a perfect year, he could be forgiven for thinking the business of winning All-Ireland titles is a straight-forward enough one.

There’s little danger of him falling into that trap, though. His brother Noel was part of a generation of players who won senior and U-21 All-Irelands in 2010 and were told they had the hurling world at their feet.

Six years would pass before they won the Liam MacCarthy Cup again though, and McGrath believes everyone in this Tipperary panel has learned a lesson from that.

“I think the hurt from those defeats really drove on the older lads,” he says.

“We fed off them. We didn’t want to have the same experiences. The likes of Padraig (Maher), Michael Cahill, Noel (McGrath), Seamie (Callanan) – they’re around seven, eight years.

“They’ve suffered a lot of defeats to Kilkenny in big games. That really spurred on them. Dragged some of the younger lads on with them. We didn’t want to go through the same torment.

“Thankfully, we didn’t have to suffer that. Kilkenny aren’t gone anywhere. There will be five or six teams out to get us.

“It was a long time for a team with that kind of talent to wait for a second All-Ireland. They’ll have learnt from that, fed that into the younger lads as well, ‘this doesn’t happen year after year’.

“It’s my first year involved. I know going out next year it’s not going to be handed to us. It’s going to be harder than this year to get another. That’s the mentality that we need, that we’re going to have to work harder to achieve our goals.”

There’s little chance of McGrath getting carried away with himself even though he'll almost certainly win an All-Star this year. The Loughmore-Castliney man is as down to earth a person as you could hope to meet, and not the sort to lose the run of himself.

His unflappable personality is part of what makes him such a good hurler. There’s very few players who would be entrusted to taking a penalty in a Munster Final in their very first Championship campaign, but McGrath is such a cool customer it wasn’t all that surprising he was given that responsibility against Waterford and rattled the back of the net too.

“Yeah I suppose I like to keep relaxed and not get too worked up about things," he admits. "I find when you get too worked up about it you just lose a bit of focus, I prefer to be relaxed and do my own thing, I'd have my own routine for games and I find when I'm that way I play my best hurling.”

His laid-back demeanour shouldn’t fool you though, McGrath has fire as well as ice in his personality. He wouldn’t be able to survive and thrive in the company of the best corner-backs in the country if he didn’t.

He’s not afraid either to call out the critics who have doubted the mentality of this Tipperary team in the recent past and were made to eat some humble pie by their All-Ireland win.

“The last couple of years a lot of lads were getting a lot of criticism for...and I don't think that any amateur sports person that's giving up their time freely to represent their county, or whatever, to the best of their ability should be subjected to that kind of thing,” says McGrath.

“They're only going to...we're all only going out to give our best and to represent the county and, I don't know, people have their opinions and that's grand but we just have to try and put that to the back of your mind and get on with the thing.

“Yeah, look, maybe they won't be as quick to jump to the criticism if we lose a game or two next year. That's just the way it is, you just have to put that to the back of your mind and get on with it.”

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