He knew it would be his last time wearing black and amber in the GAA’s Colosseum, but there was no fear of Joey Holden saying his goodbyes and soaking up his final moments in Croke Park as a Kilkenny hurler when the bigger picture of the team was also in the equation.
The Cats had just come up short after extra-time in an epic All-Ireland semi-final against Cork, with Holden an unused sub. But his selfless nature meant that consoling team-mates and reassuring them of better days to come was all that mattered.
Holden has been that fallen soldier on the sod in the past so he resonated with the pain his colleagues were experiencing and any personal anguish was cast aside for the good of the team. That’s always been the way of the unassuming defender.
The limelight was never craved, instead the 31-year-old just went about his business with the minimum of fuss, so the messages of appreciation after hanging up his Kilkenny boots two weeks ago took him by surprise as corner-backs are rarely used to pats on the back.
“It’s nice to get it, especially when you think back to those bad games and you’re doubting yourself and you’re thinking that maybe people don’t rate you or don’t think that you’re a good hurler, so to see the praise and the comments was very refreshing,” Holden tells the Irish Independent in his first interview since calling it a day with Kilkenny.
Having fallen out of favour with Brian Cody in recent seasons, the writing was probably on the wall that 2021 would be his last hurrah, and Holden is “happy enough” to have stepped aside after telling the 11-time All-Ireland SHC-winning manager of his intentions.
As is his wont, Cody didn’t provide a ticker-tape parade with brevity his calling card once players decide to step off the inter-county treadmill.
Ah sure, listen, I hadn’t been playing the last year or that, but he was sound about it now, in fairness to him. He understood and just said thanks and all that so it was quick and short, but nothing more than I wanted or expected either,” he says.
The approach which Cody has employed en route to becoming the GAA’s most successful manager is always a talking point and Holden’s relationship with his former master was just like most that came before him, simple and to the Point
There were never a huge amount of conversations between the pair during his eight seasons with Kilkenny, even when he was captain in 2015, but the talk really dried up as he lost his starting place in recent seasons, despite sparkling form at club level.
That’s something Kilkenny legend Henry Shefflin struggled with during his final year with Kilkenny and while Holden longed for feedback on what he needed to change to break back into the starting 15, he just sucked it up for the greater good.
“You kind of get that vibe that you’re not being chatted to as much or you’d see other lads being chatted to, just small bits, but those small bits you tend to take notice of them and you’re just like, ‘OK, maybe I’m not being chatted to today so I don’t have much of chance’ but that’s the way it is,” Holden says. “You would be frustrated that you’d like to get a chance or you’d like to get some bit of information about what you could do better and I would have worked hard on that. What can you do, that’s just the way it goes.
Sometimes you just have to suck it up and realise that you’re only one person on a team so you can’t be taking the limelight just because you’re feeling unhappy, there could be another 15 lads feeling the very same way. You just have to suck it up and just get on with it I always felt.”
Holden certainly wasn’t tipped for the top after an undistinguished underage career, but that no-nonsense attitude and a thirst for improvement eventually saw him climb up the ranks after having his skills honed against many of the game’s finest forwards in Ballyhale.
Regular jousts with the likes of Shefflin, TJ Reid and Colin Fennelly polished his skills and slowly developed him into one of the most miserly defenders in the game, but even he didn’t expect his rapid graduation to inter-county action in 2014.
“I couldn’t believe I was even kept in for the additional trials or even made the panel to be honest,” he says matter-of-factly. “There was about 40 of us in for trials and I’d be going home from them and thinking, ‘Sure we’ll have one more day out and then they’ll cut 10 and that’ll be my job done and we’ll see how the club goes’.
“That was my kind of thinking and then you’re there for another little bit, then you train well, you play a game, you play another game or two and it just seemed to keep going from there. You don’t soak it in or think about it too much. You’re just turning up the next time and the next time.
Maybe that was the best thing and that you’re not thinking too far ahead and you’re just turning up to the next training or match and just seeing how it goes and taking it from there.”
Setting realistic targets without the pressure of time limits and trying to achieve them through hard work and perseverance was his key to success and it saw him start an All-Ireland SHC final in his first year with the Cats as he started at wing-back in an epic draw against Tipperary in ’14.
Better was to come the following season with Holden admitting that he “couldn’t have scripted it any better” as All-Ireland club final success on St Patrick’s Day with Ballyhale Shamrocks parachuted him in as county skipper for an “unbelievable year”.
All the talk was of the gaping chasm left by JJ Delaney’s retirement, but Holden slipped in seamlessly at
full-back before quietening Joe Canning in their final defeat of Galway en route to lifting Liam MacCarthy.
He was named All-Star No 3 that winter to cap the dream season, but a year is a long time in hurling and 12 months later he was left licking his wounds having been at the wrong end of a Séamus Callanan masterclass as their bitter rivals Tipp exacted sweet revenge.
With Holden left in splendid isolation on the edge of the square, Callanan took him for nine points from play in one of the great final displays. That dented his pride, but his happy-go-lucky personality made sure it didn’t leave a lasting impression.
“Life goes on and you go on a few sessions and you forget about it and the next season starts again and you just try again. If you dwell on it for a long time, it’s obviously going to bring you down so you can’t be dwelling on it too long,” he says.
“But it does hurt when it happens, absolutely. People will say it to you all right, but I’d be the type of lad that does be maybe laughing and taking the p*** so if I’m taking the p*** out of somebody else then I have to be ready for that to be thrown at me.
“Maybe that was a good way for me to move on that people have a laugh and a joke with me and I just sort of brush it off and say, ‘Listen, it happened, you did this as well one time’ so that’s the kind character that I am. If I’m throwing out the dirt then I have to be ready to take it too.”
Holden, a maths teacher in Kilkenny City Vocational School, admits it’s difficult to comprehend that he is the last man to lead Kilkenny to the promised land six years ago but he sees no reason why the famine on Noreside can’t be ended soon.
“It’s probably hard to believe, but that’s the way hurling is and the challenge is always thrown down to you year on year and again, just because we haven’t done it for a certain number of years, that doesn’t mean that it can’t happen very quickly again.
“They’ll put it up to any team, there’s no doubt about that. I’d always be hopeful that Kilkenny will win All-Irelands and can be competitive in All-Irelands every year so I’ll still be very hopeful next year that they can put in a good run and be in there on All-Ireland final day.”
The inter-county void will be filled with travelling as well as trying his hand at squash and handball but after securing a Kilkenny SHC four-in-a-row, all eyes are on more provincial and All-Ireland club success.
Ballyhale Shamrocks were on tour in Cheltenham recently for Reid’s stag party, but Carlow champions Mount Leinster Rangers are now on their radar on Saturday week as the long journey to a third All-Ireland in succession begins in earnest.
“There’s definitely a hunger to stay going as long as I can and to realise that these opportunities won’t come around the whole time. When you’re winning, keep winning because it can dry up very fast.
Those years with Kilkenny went very fast so you take stock of that and use it as motivation to make hay while the sun shines.”
Cc @Malarkey
