Vinny Corey of Monaghan pictured at St. Tiernach's Park in Clones ahead of Saturday's GAA Football All Ireland Senior Championship Round 2 game against Armagh.
By John Harrington
It all began in 2003 for Vinny Corey when he made his Ulster SFC debut for Monaghan against Armagh.
16 years on, he’s still going strong and readying himself for the challenge of playing the same opponents in tomorrow’s do or die All-Ireland SFC Round 2 qualifier.
By now he has the science of getting his body read for the rigours of a Championship match down to a fine art.
Every other player on the pitch tomorrow will be younger, most of them significantly so, than the 36-year-old, but few will be as well prepared.
“When you get a bit older you realise you have less margin for error in your preparation,” Corey told GAA.ie.
“Whereas when you're younger you can take a few short-cuts and you have great powers of recovery.
“When you get a bit older, recovery is the most important thing and you have to prepare accordingly.
“You find over the years that there are plenty of fads that come and go. These and that supplements and the rest. But ultimately it all comes down to the basics at the end of the day - sleep, hydration, and nutrition.
“Those are the main boxes you're trying to tick.
“Then, if you get a wee bit of luck and manage to stay injury free you want to take it as far as you can go.”
There’s a reason that not many inter-county footballers and hurlers are still capable of performing at the highest level into their mid-thirties as Corey has.
It takes a huge physical and mental commitment to keep yourself in the shape required to compete with men who are typically at least ten years younger than you.
“Some people might have the perception that the older you get you take it easier and don't train as much, but it's probably the opposite,” said Corey.
“You have to train as much if not more. Maybe train smarter, but you definitely have to put in the hours.
“I don't think it's the case that, just because you're a wee bit older, you can just rock back in March and April and pick it up from there because you have the experience.
“I don't think it's like that at all. You have to keep yourself going and keep doing the training the same as anybody else and try to train as smart as you can.
“The work-load definitely doesn't decrease as you get older, if anything the time you have to put into in terms of getting to training earlier and rehabbing a wee bit more just to make sure the body is right to go out, all that takes time.
“You wouldn't be doing that and putting in that time and slog in the winter months and all the rest if you didn't have the hunger for it.”
Monaghan's Vinny Corey tackles Armagh's Martin O'Rourke in the 2004 Ulster SFC.
It helps too when you’re convinced that the panel you’re a part of is capable of winning some silverware.
This is Corey’s 17th season with Monaghan, and he believes they have more talent in their ranks now than ever before.
“Definitely so,” he said. “The panel is very strong and the longer players stick with it the more experienced they become.
“I think when a group of players sticks together for long enough you accumulate all of that experience. We've been lucky in Monaghan that we haven't had a big influx of players at one stage.
“It wasn't a case where we came back one year and we've lost seven or eight players or players are going off to America or taking a year out and all the rest.
“We've managed to keep the players together and that experience we have built together does make it as strong a panel as we've ever had.”
Monaghan players, from left, Shane Carey, Conor McCarthy, Fintan Kelly, Vinny Corey and Dermot Malone during the National Anthem ahead of the 2018 GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Quarter-Final Group 1 Phase 3 match against Galway.
Sometimes an experienced group can grow stale together though, and that’s the fear some Monaghan supporters have about their team this year after an early exit from the Ulster Championship at the hands of Cavan was followed by an underwhelming win over Fermanagh in the first round of the qualifiers.
Armagh certainly looked much more effervescent during their Ulster SFC run that ended with a semi-final replay defeat to Cavan, and will be very dangerous opponents tomorrow.
“In a lot of people's eyes, they're playing a lot better than we are,” said Corey. “They've got a consistency in their performance as well which makes them a very dangerous proposition for this weekend.
“A lot of people in Armagh would feel that if they had gotten off to a better start in the replay against Cavan it would be them in the Ulster Final this weekend.
“Listen, we know we're up against it. We're playing a team that probably has better form than us. But the challenge is there and we're looking forward to it.
“The most important thing in the early round of the qualifiers is to just get results regardless of the form.
“Momentum is a great thing. If we get by this game and we get a bit of luck, you never know what might happen.
“Nothing will happen unless we win this game though and the way we're playing at the minute in a lot of peoples' eyes, a lot of people don't expect us to go on that far or even win this weekend.
“It's up to us to knuckle down and get the performance level up and that's probably the only thing we can focus on at the minute.”
