GAA: HE'S COUNTY: A WARTS AND ALL DIARY FROM INSIDE THE CAMP:I'M SURE you're wondering how I'm going? The last challenge game's Sunday. The rat-tat-tat of opportunity for some, the final bit of well-worn rope for others.

If I get picked, I’ll start. If not, I’ll duck it with a hammer. The last thing I want to do is come on as a sub and score 1-2 or 1-3 when it’s all gone very loose.

Because one of those football scientists on the local radio – “Top Of The Left” Eugene or “The Wisest Man Around” Matt – will only go and get a great big you-know-what for “great strength in depth this year, men to come off the bench, blah dee blah dee blah dee bloody blah.”

The same great big you-know-what they got excited about last year, the same great big you-know-what the manager started to believe, and the same great big illusory you-know-what that got our asses handed back to us on a plate long before Croke Park even loomed on the horizon.

Oh, our man fairly discovered the secret to having strength in depth: leave your three best players off until 10 minutes into the second-half.

Cup your chin in your hand and call yourself Phil Jackson.

Not that I’d be so forthright at training, mind you. Last Tuesday we had the Annual Great Seduction Scene: Pre-championship Talking Night.

Time to step it up a gear! We’re only wasting our time otherwise! Whateverrrrrr!

I spoke, of course. You know yourself.

“Look the man beside you in the eye. Can you trust him to go to war with you? Because this is war. It’s all about trust, lads. Will you take two in the chest for him?” I asked, injecting a bit of an emotional waver in my voice at the appropriate time.

Grinkers was beside me. To illustrate the point, I hit him a rattle across the chest. A good rattle: one I’d never give him out on the field, obviously. In controlled laboratory conditions, every rat’s a tiger.

He never flinched. A tear of determination rolled down his jaw.

Grinkers, for God’s sake. Not the brightest. Not the best. He’d wear tracks for you up and down Newcastlewest, Charlestown, and Ballinascreen. But I can think of no more compelling metaphor for hell on earth than the sight of him coming on to the end of a move in Croke Park.

Stewards waddling to end-of-match positions, and we a point down.

Because that’s when Grinkers would simply fill the togs. “Emergency clean-up for blue 12 please, and would teams please ensure all players are toilet trained in future.”

War. The most over-used sporting analogy of all. Don’t forget who told you this first: war is for bad players. War is for others. War is for Grinkers. Grinkers everywhere.

He’ll definitely start Sunday. More rope for Grinkers, please, and thank you very much, kind sir, don’t call us, we’ll call you.

Watch the moves closely. That’s the key. He’s not talking to me at the moment. That would usually mean he’s not going to start me. But, of course, it could also mean he is going to start me but wants to keep me on my toes.

Because Bainisteoir Freud is into reverse psychology. How this man is still a mere BER assessor is beyond me. Somebody been slacking in the Mensa talent ID division, then?

When he dropped me two years ago, even his wife blanked me. Drop a man for bad form, fair enough; but drop a man because you think he’s been having a bit of the oldest fun of all with your daughter (and, to invoke the great Clinton – and I don’t mean Hennessy – technically, I wasn’t), that simply is bad form.

I had the last laugh, though. It was some goal, wasn’t it? One All-Ireland gets you all the young ones you can manage for about three months: a season on The Sunday Game credits keep you in supply for half a decade.

His missus was all over me like a rash that night – she lets the handbrake off with a few GTs.

But it pays to keep the snout reasonably clean in this game.

Will he start me in the championship? He’ll have to. He hates having to bring me on when we’re a few points down. He even hates having to beckon me down from the fifth row.

He knows I’ll have been a bitch. He knows I’ll have been smirking. He knows I’ll have been waiting for this moment.

So he’ll send up one of his so-called selectors. I’ll draw it out. Pretend not to notice. Make him shout.

A big scene taking the tracksuit top off. Gloves. Mouth guard. Hop on the spot. Draw it out. Build the anticipation, “Top Of The Left” Eugene giving it socks on the radio.

He’ll tell me to watch my chance. Read the play. And a hundred other non-specific instructions. I’ll go in and do what I’ve always done: spread some mayhem and see what storms I can blow up.

But, right now, it’s this challenge game Sunday. It’s start or bust for me. Will he start me? He’ll have to.

He will have to, won’t he? Like, you’ve seen what I can do. That will stand for something.

Won’t it?