By John Harrington

Galway centre-back Gearoid McInerney is a good advertisement for the power of positive thinking.

At the start of this year he set himself a number of different goals and changed the screen-saver on his phone as a source of motivation.

By the end of the season all of those goals had been achieved and the screensaver proved prophetic.

"I like to set benchmarks this year. I did this year, I set goals this year around January - February time,” said McInerney today after being announced as the PwC GAA-GPA Hurler of the Month for September.

“I changed the picture on my phone to something motivational, something kind of close to me. That kind of helped it to me.

"The goals, you kind of start a bit low; make number six my own position, right up to winning the All-Ireland and a few personal goals along the way.

“The picture was the Liam MacCarthy Cup on the phone. I only changed it back there the last day because I even forgot it was there, it was there so long."

McInerney has no intention of resting on his laurels after Galway’s All-Ireland win.

He’s already got one eye on the 2018 campaign and is determined to have his body in the best possible shape for it.

“I always like this time of year for putting on a bit of body mass and cutting it down through the year.

“I like to take the opportunity to get back into the gym side of things; not so much the hurling side of things, you let that come later on because you get plenty of that. I like to get back into the gym side of things straight away.”

The thought of McInerney being even bigger and stronger in 2018 will be a scary one for opposition centre-forwards because he bossed every player he marked in this year’s championship with his raw physicality.

Galway’s S&C coach, Lukasz Kirszenstein, has received a lot of praise in the aftermath of the All-Ireland win, and McInerney is another fully paid up member of that fan-club.

“I'd always be in touch with him,” he said. “I really kind of emphasised my strength and conditioning - that would be a big side to my game. I'd be close enough to him in that sort of a way. I'd be asking him for a few bits of advice.

“On the hurling side, you'd be onto Franny (Forde) for a bit of advice or Noel Larkin for a bit of advice on what to improve on with the hurling side of things.

“I don't think there's a ceiling on it. The same with hurling, there's no ceiling on how much you can improve. You need to be better next year to be the same.

“We have to strive to go through that ceiling. There are no limitations there really.”