Johnny Pilkington didn’t spend hours at a ball wall. He played the game.
Brian Whelehan believed in it anyway
“Up to the age of 19 or 20, I would have been out in the back yard on my own every day after school,” he explains now.
"Come in, get a cup of tea or whatever and from there then I’d be banging the ball off the wall for an hour and a half or two hours until either there was training or if the dinner was ready.
“That would have been most evenings. It wasn’t a chore to go and do it. Everyone has their own way of doing things and for me, when you’re on your own, you give yourself a mental target - whether it’s striking or touch - and by doing that, you’re hitting three or four times as many balls as you would be at training.”
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Hitting a ball off a wall didn’t teach him to hurl in the shit & muck inside in Birr of a January weekend morning or afternoon.
It did help his touch so that he didn’t get stuck in that same muck, mullocking over trying to rise a ball in the shite.
Pilkington was a freak of course, but fit as a fiddle.
First touch is no good to you if you shit yourself in the presence of an opponent.
Being tough in front of an opponent is no use without a first touch
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There’s no walls in Croke park
You won’t make the pitch in Birr if you shit yourself at the sight of an opponent
You wha?! There’s fucking loads of them
The few months he spent running that Dave Matthews down on here and saying he was causing loads of injuries was gas.
Well if he trained Bishopstown hurlers last year hed want to change his training methods as they fell apart in last 10 minutes of each championship game.
Aside from all that it’s great for the auld mental health. I’d often tip down to a nearby ballwall midweek for a few pucks in between Accelerated Deployment and Methodology Refinement meetings. The fresh air, elevated heart rate and crisp striking off the so-called weaker side is key in allowing me to step out of the weeds and become an effective agent for change in our organisation.
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I belt a few off the gable end on the when I’m WFH for 10 or 15 minutes. It really gets the blood flowing.
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There are at least ten snake-oil merchants for every decent coach doing the rounds. This wouldn’t even be in the top ten of ludicrous comments that the lads on the circuit will come out with. It’s a spoofer’s paradise
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Not sure if this is related
I know. Really good coaches are very difficult to find
Never knew he had a podcast. Any good?
He used to be on the Examiner channel and it was good stuff, haven’t heard this new one yet myself either
I honestly think these mass concrete hurling walls being built at the minute are a waste of time. There’s something about them that takes the sting out of the ball and it can be dreadfully slow coming back to you. The old style handball alley and even a gable end wall are much better.
To really improve as a hurler you need to go down to the field yourself with 2-3 friends and just mess about freestyle for a few hours. Practice frees, sidelines, penalties, crossbar challenge, recreate spectacular scores, spin the ball over the bar from the corner flag etc.