Austin Gleeson grows into pillar of strength for Waterford

Only David Attenborough commentary would do the scene justice. June 5th, Thurles: a crackling Semple Stadium with 54 minutes played and Waterford leading by four points.

David McInerney strides across the turf, calmly rearranging Davy Fitzgerald's chess pieces until Austin Gleeson ploughs into the Clare man's chest.

Three times they instinctively bash shoulders, only pausing for gulps of air before leathering into each other twice more.

Referee James Owens arrives so Gleeson trots away. McInerney follows. Gleeson hits him one more time before everyone looks to the sky. Animalistic barely describes the moment this maturing silverback stamped his authority on the Munster hurling semi-final.

“He’s at his best when he’s angry and bitter,” noted his beaming manager Derek McGrath after Gleeson did more than most in the 1-21 to 0-17 victory. “That’s when it just flows from him. He doesn’t need much instruction from us.”

Wonderfully agile

Yet McGrath knows to push him harder than the others. Because it worked when teaching him in De La Salle. Because Gleeson is a rare breed of sportsman: enormously powerful yet wonderfully agile, his freakish defending coupled with a sideline cut and 0-5 from play, which included the killer 85-metre strike after a nimble intercept, emptied Clare into Saturday's qualifier with Limerick.

The 21-year-old’s size makes it bewildering to learn he only embraced a proper conditioning programme last winter.

“It does benefit you a lot,” Gleeson told Joe.ie. “Makes you not physically stronger, [but] your core element, you can take the hits and keep moving forward. It’s only twice a week, two-three hours. That’s what I’m doing instead of lying on the couch.”

Everyone can see the core strength he now feels.

“The rucks take everything out of you, your lungs are just empty. They are crazy. The bangs and the little flicks, everything you can’t see on the telly, are difficult to take and keep moving if you are not doing these things in the gym.”

Gleeson describes the Waterford system as “freedom when we have the ball” and “we just work like animals” without it.

Like far too many GAA thoroughbreds who are allowed to be flogged in a fashion that would have a horse trainer worth his salt looking on with disgust, he danced from a minor All-Ireland title into the senior panel while the under-21s and Mount Sion were dragging and pulling out of their seemingly unbreakable talent. It led to an exhaustion-fuelled plea for mercy.

"After losing the county final last year, we lost the next game at under-21 and then lost the next game," he told Off the Ball. "I dunno, a moment of madness on my part but I just texted Derek one night saying 'I need a break for a while'. We met up the next day and the second I started talking to him I was like 'Wish I hadn't sent the text'. It was just a heat-of-the-moment thing after being down after losing a match."

McGrath has many traits but mainly come across as a gentle, wise hurling man. Gleeson was cleaned up, watered and rested. But after dominating the third instalment of the Clare affair there can be no more rest. Phenomenal they said. The Déise love child of Ken McGrath and Dan Shanahan.

Everyone wants a piece of him now. The other day he got paid for promoting Sure deodorant. What remains the same in Gaelic games is the piseogs – modern term: OCD – seemingly practical men carry around like loose change.

Superstitious

“Derek would be superstitious enough. He keeps things a certain way and it kind of rubs off on some of us as well. Because even going to matches we all sit in the same seats. It’s weird in a way. Small little things stick in your head that you have to do this or you have to do that. He’s very superstitious, that’s just the way the man is.”

On Sunday comes a chance for atonement. “Personally I can’t remember a second of that game,” said Gleeson of Tipp squeezing Waterford out the Munster final last year. “It was as if I woke up on the Sunday morning and went straight back asleep Sunday night.

“We can only learn from last year and the three games against Clare.We have played different styles and systems in the three games and we feel that we are more confident in ourselves. Last year was a first Munster final for a lot of us in senior grade and we are going to enjoy the build up and hopefully we can go one better.”

They go on with a stronger core.