SPORTING PASSIONS RICHIE MULLALLY:WE PLAYED hurling with the club from national school level up. Our teacher in the national school, Mick Lynch, was a Kerryman and he encouraged us to play both sports, football and hurling. So with Glenmore at underage, we won football and hurling titles all along – I suppose the two of them went part-and-part together.

From 1991 on I played football and hurling in the Leinster Championships with Good Counsel College in Wexford. In 94/’95 we won the Leinster A in hurling and football, which I think was the first time the college had done it.

I was corner back on the football team and we got to the All-Ireland final against St Pat’s of Maghera. I would have played with the likes of Leigh O’Brien, Tommy Howlin, Jason Lawlor and David Shannon, who featured with Wexford later on.

I played mostly in the half back line or midfield. In 1997 I started playing with the senior footballers in Kilkenny and I played with them until 2002 when I made the hurling panel. The hurling took over then. It wasn’t that I couldn’t play football anymore but it’s probably a choice you have to make.

In Kilkenny, the footballers don’t really get a look in but for the years I was there it was as serious as being on the hurling panel. It was a good set-up, we trained hard and it was just a pity we didn’t make a breakthrough.

I remember playing Kerry in Ballyragget one year in the league. We obviously got a drubbing and the gulf in class was substantial. For the likes of Kilkenny to be playing Kerry in the league is probably not right, but it was a nice experience to play in it.

I was actually playing centre forward and I was marking Séamus Moynihan.

It was an experience, I’ll put it that way. I didn’t score any points – I was trying to distribute a bit of ball but I didn’t get much of it that day.

I played football for Kilkenny with some of the hurlers, like Henry Shefflin and Mick Kavanagh, at under-16 and minor and they’re very good footballers as well.

Normally if you’re good at one sport you’ll be good at another and most of the hurlers are decent footballers , like Jackie Tyrrell, Eoin Larkin and Eddie Brennan. But if you’re a good hurler in Kilkenny you have to concentrate on hurling.

I remember when I went on to the panel in 2002. There’s so much competition that you feel you have to concentrate on the one code, because if you let it slip you mightn’t get the opportunity again on the hurling panel.

The tenacity of man marking is something you could bring forward from football to hurling. I do tend to be a bit loose on the hurling field, marking wise, but when I was playing football it taught me how to man mark tightly.

Speaking of Séamus Moynihan, I thought he was a brilliant footballer and I loved watching him. He was always in the right place at the right time and he was always able to make space to clear the ball properly. He had so much energy and he reminds me of Tommy Walsh in the hurling. He’s full of energy and it rubs off on everyone else.

If you look at football in the last few years Tyrone and Armagh have brought up the tempo so that there are no positions as such. There are, but you have corner backs coming up scoring points and they brought fitness to a new step. In hurling, I suppose Kilkenny have brought physicality to a new level; they seem to be a much stronger team than the rest.

Its interesting to watch the likes of Tyrone. People have given out about them for their blanket defence but when you can get a team so fit and so focused that they’re hunting in packs like that, I think it’s a joy to watch. It proves that they’re totally focused on the job ahead and that they’ve peaked at the right time.

When Kilkenny are going well they are hunting in packs. When they’re winning All-Irelands, their forward line – their corner forwards and their wing forwards – are closing down opposing defences.

Its a trademark of Kilkenny at the moment and hopefully it’ll continue for a long time.

When I made the hurling panel I had to concentrate on that because places were up for grabs. There was a bit of a reshuffle and the opportunity was there to make the team so I just had to go for it.

It was a pity that I had to leave football behind to do that but in the end I had a good run with the hurlers so I’m happy with the way things went.