HE’S hurling’s boy wonder with the GAA world at his feet, but it’s just two years since Waterford’s Austin Gleeson briefly quit the county panel in a moment of dark disillusion.
The 21-year-old, who recently collected the GAA/GPA Opel Hurler of the Year award, was finding it tough to live up to the pressure of being a stand-out young talent and texted boss Derek McGrath to say he was stepping away. There was drink taken when he sent the message after a friend’s 21st birthday celebration and McGrath moved quickly to rectify the situation, responding within minutes to set up a meeting the following morning, where he talked the player around.
Things have clearly worked out okay for Gleeson, who recently emulated Clare’s Tony Kelly by winning the overall and Young Player of the Year awards in the same year, along with an Allstar. But it’s still insight into the pressures that fall on young players, who are expected to deliver big for their counties.
“It was just the pressure of it after the first year with Waterford, I wasn’t really able for it,” said Gleeson.
“I sent a stupid text when I had a few drinks on me. It was literally 10 minutes later, maybe five minutes later, he texted me back: ‘I’ll ring you in the morning’. That was it. He rang me the next morning and we went for a drive and I just explained that it was a stupid text that came from a loss that maybe we shouldn’t have had and that was it.
“It was just a lot of pressure being put on, from myself more than anything. I just felt in that moment that the demands - I just wouldn’t be able to cope with them. He collected me the next morning. I think we were out in the gym with Waterford and we went out there and I was just talking to him on the way out and that. The second he started talking, I knew that it was the wrong decision to make, that I was never going to leave the set-up, so it was just one of those stupid decisions that I kind of regret.”
Gleeson has known McGrath for years, having also studied under him in secondary school. The centre-back colossus is adamant McGrath is the man to lead the Decies to the All-Ireland title that they crave. But there were concerns McGrath would step away after this year’s Championship, particularly as he required leave from his day job just to focus on his hurling commitments.
“It would have taken its toll a good bit if he’d gone,” said Gleeson.
“I would have hated to be the man stepping into his shoes too, being the next manager. His man-management is probably his best attribute. He has everyone on that team playing for him and that’s the main thing. Whoever stepped in would have had to be a serious, serious manager. He is an unbelievable man and an unbelievable manager.”
McGrath won’t be around forever though, and the sense of time ticking down on their Championship dream is strong. Waterford have reached the last two All-Ireland semi-finals under McGrath and Gleeson says the players are putting pressure on themselves to deliver big in 2017.
“Absolutely, yeah,” he said.
“I remember the second year under Derek, we played Wexford in the last group game in the league, the year we won the league. At half-time, Michael Walsh stood up in the middle of the dressing room and gave a speech. He said he’d been around teams that had said, ‘ah, we’ll do it next year, we’ll do it next year’. He said basically, ‘our time is now to do it’.
“Ever since then, we’re saying ‘do it now, do it now and don’t be waiting’. Maybe this year coming, it’s more important than ever to do it. We don’t want to be waiting around another couple of years. The years are going by so fast that it could be 10 years’ time and we’re still saying the same thing.
"Look, we just want to have that medal in our pocket as soon as we can.”
