By John Harrington

Sometimes when you’re thrown in at the deep-end you sink rather than swim.

That was certainly the chastening experience of Brian O’Halloran when he was surprisingly picked on the Waterford starting XV for the 2010 All-Ireland SHC semi-final against Tipperary.

O’Halloran was a precocious young talent, but he’d only turned 18 three months previously and found out the hard way that there’s a major difference between underage hurling and the business end of an All-Ireland Senior Championship.

The then Waterford manager Davy Fitzgerald put him in full-forward on Tipperary’s grizzled full-back Paul Curran who proceeded to eat his young opponent without salt.

It must be said that O’Halloran wasn’t helped by the quality of ball being sent into him, much of it being high and aimless which suited the far more physically powerful Curran.

But it was quite obvious too that he simply wasn’t ready yet for this level so Waterford manager Davy Fitzgerald whipped him off after 22 minutes and replaced him with Seamus Prendergast.

“I did my Leaving Cert that year and I was on the panel about a week later,” recalls O’Halloran.

“First few weeks went great, came on in the Munster Final and scored against Cork. And then started the (All-Ireland) semi-final, a disaster personally for myself.

“Davy had good faith in me and things were going well in training. Just didn't work out on the day. Probably in hindsight I wasn't ready physically or mentally.

“I was only 18 at the time. Playing against seasoned campaigners. Very disappointing day personally and I suppose we lost that day as well, wasn't easy.

“That was my first year. I wasn't long experiencing the highs and lows of inter-county in a way.

“I was kind of in a happy bubble. I'm hurling well, this is great, this is easy in a way. Then you got brought down to earth fairly quick.

“But I wouldn't give out about Davy for that. He made the call and at the time I'd good confidence in myself and Davy had good confidence in me.

“Came up against a great Tipp team, Paul Curran a brilliant full back. The confidence of youth, I wasn't really thinking of the negative things that could happen.

“I was just thinking I'll go out here now and Croke Park will suit me. But inter-county isn't like that. I wasn't long finding out that.”

O’Halloran disappeared without a trace for a couple of years after that and some speculated he’d been ruined by the confidence-shattering experience of that 2010 All-Ireland semi-final.

The truth was his problems were physical rather than mental, as a couple of serious injuries stalled his development as a hurler.

“The year after I got a bad injury and that was the most frustrating thing that I wasn't able to kind of right the wrongs or show that I was made of something,” says O’Halloran.

“I'd two or three years of bad injuries after that. That was the most frustrating thing. They set me back a lot more than the mental side of it.

“I learned a lot from that day in Croke Park. It was a tough day. It was probably tough on my family and stuff like that.

“As a youngster, reading tough things about you in the paper and stuff like that. It's hurling at the end of the day, you learn from things.

“I tore my hamstring tendon the following March and missed a year. I was getting back into the swing of things a year later and I tore my ankle ligaments.

“I suppose I would have had the name of being injury prone but it was actually only two major injuries and they took it out of the body.

“It was hard to get back on the wagon after them but thanks be to God, I'm on the right road now.”

O’Halloran’s story is one of triumph over adversity. With his body failing him and plenty of people doubting him it would have been easy to disappear into the shadows, but instead he gritted his teeth and resolved to make the make the most of his talent.

He was encouraged along the way by Waterford manager Derek McGrath who was a walking, talking cautionary tale of the regrets you can have if you allow your talent to whither on the vine.

“Yeah look there were times when I was thinking I should be in America on a J1 or I should be in Cheltenham in March, not rehabbing for National Leagues,” says O’Halloran.

“But Derek's always on about persistence and bide your time and stay at it. He was a very talented minor, he said he never stayed at it and he regrets it.

“My greatest fear was being over in America, seeing Waterford win an All-Ireland or something like that, knowing I could have had some part to play in it.

“I don't think I could live with the regrets of that as such. I wanted to do as much as I could for as long as I can. If I wasn't wanted or if I wasn't required, so be it but I wanted to stay on my own terms."

At the ripe old age of 26 O’Halloran is now looking very much at home at this level and has played a key role in Waterford’s run to the Final as an impact substitute.

His combination of pace, a silken first-touch and an eye for a score means he’s just the sort of player who can make hay when an opposition defence is tiring, and that’s exactly what he’s done.

“It's worked, yeah,” he says. “It's like everything, we're acutely aware it won't work every day.

“We've been fortunate it has worked the last two or three games. I don't think it's as formulated a plan as people might make out, it's still you don't know when you're coming on, you're hoping, you're presuming, you're getting yourself ready but there's a great panel there.

“I know you see the three or four lads coming on, but people don't see the 26 or 30 lads training, that are really driving the whole thing.

“It's what Derek wanted from day one, a decent panel and I think he has that now. We're just happy to be coming on and to be working hard.”

Being able to come on as a sub and immediately make an impact on the game isn’t an easy skill to master.

Sure, you might have a bit more gas in the tank than the man you’re marking, but adjusting quickly to the flow of the game and recognising an opposition’s weak-points is a challenge.

O’Halloran does his best to prep for his introduction by closely watching the match from the subs bench to identify any trends so when he’s thrown into the action it doesn’t take him long to get up to speed.

“Yeah, it is a bit of help,” he says. “I've seen someone before describe coming on as seeing the exam before you take it.

“I don't know if it's like that now but you can see things, but then you mightn't want to read too much into it either because you might be asked to take on a different role than what you thought you might so you're taking certain things and not thinking about other things.

“I've come on a good bit as a sub over the last two years and while I wouldn't say you'd ever get used to it or have it down to a tee, I do have that bit more experience coming on than some lads.”

The best impact substitutes run onto the pitch with the hard-wired attitude of seizing any opportunity that comes their way and really going for the jugular.

That’s the sort of mindset that O’Halloran believes this Waterford team as a whole needs to embrace if they’re to beat Galway in Sunday’s All-Ireland SHC Final.

The memory of Waterford’s disastrous collapse in the 2008 Final is still a vivid one for him, and is helping him keep very focused on the task at hand.

“I was on Hill 16, it was a tough day at the office,” says O’Halloran. “Great memories leading up to it, we hadn't been in the final for a long, long time and I remember going up the day before, I was 17 at the time and stayed over.

“It was a huge deal, into Hill 16 the next day full of excitement - I suppose it was the innocence of youth, not thinking this is a great Kilkenny team, which it was.

“The Waterford team didn't fire on the day and they met one of the best teams of all time, and it was a tough time for all Waterford people, to be honest.

“It's no relevance to what happens on Sunday but you can take learnings from it, there was a lot hype around at that time and through no fault of anyone's maybe, people did get carried away on it.

“I suppose that's a lesson we can take away that the match is the main thing. There will be sideshows with some tickets etc, but for us as a group it's all about the match and that's it.”

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