Working towards fruition

Ever since he broke so effortlessly onto the Galway senior hurling panel there's been much said about the qualities of Damien Hayes. That incalculable strength-to-weight ratio, that most natural of strikes, that pace, that irrepressible drive, that steely character - and not forgetting that skill at selling used cars.

Hayes was just out of the minor ranks when he was called into the senior panel in 2001. He didn't get to play against Tipperary in the All-Ireland final, but he got his grounding nonetheless and within a year was established as one of Galway's most prolific scoring forwards.

Yet one quality that doesn't get thrown about as much is his unlimited enthusiasm for hurling. When the Galway team opened its doors to one of their last training sessions before Sunday's All-Ireland final, Hayes could be seen tearing into every drill and every set piece like it was the last move of a match. Hayes has only one level of work rate and that's flat out - and you'd swear he could keep going all night.

When that work rate is combined with moments of inspiration the results can be devastating. Ask Tipperary. With 13 minutes to go in last month's quarter-final Hayes produced one of the defining moments of Galway's season, casting off Tipperary defender Hugh Moloney before rocketing the ball into the net. Like the needle in the haystack he knew he had that goal in him somewhere.

He puts that passage of play down to the spirit of the team (did we mention modesty?): "We kept plugging away," he says, "and that is one thing we have been doing this year. We have trained awful hard, kept going, and just kept getting the scores. When I got the goal we were only two points behind with 13 minutes remaining. The game was there to be taken then, and we just took it."

Hayes usually laughs whenever people refer to his scoring totals as some sort of assessment of his performance. He only scored 0-1 in the semi-final goal-fest against Kilkenny, and yet for Hayes the goals and points he helps make count for just as much. Anyway, he had a certain Michael Kavanagh to contend with the last day.

"Michael is a great hurler, but I always go out to do my best. I won a few frees and made two of the goals and as Conor Hayes said afterwards, every player on the field did their bit.

"But the way we play, our full-forward line is our last line of defence. We try to limit the amount of clearances that opposing teams get. But everyone has given it everything so far. Everyone is working hard for each other, we are all friends, we are all one unit, and everyone is extremely proud to be a part of the Galway set-up.

"It's down to those magical 70 minutes of hurling now, and hopefully we can produce a performance that we'll be proud of, and that can bring home the All-Ireland. We have a mountain to climb. We are playing Cork, the best team in the country, three All-Ireland finals in a row. We are just going to go up and give it everything and hopefully that will be enough. I know I keep saying hopefully, but hopefully is a big word and we would love to see the Liam MacCarthy Cup coming back."

While he has two All-Ireland minor titles to his name (from 1999 and 2000), he lost two under-21 finals in the years after. Winning the county title with his club Portumna two years ago helped satisfy some of the ambition, as did winning the league title in 2004, but like the rest of his team-mates, Hayes won't be fully satisfied until he lands the biggest prize of all.

Even beating Kilkenny in the semi-final was quickly put to bed: "I was back at work at nine on Monday morning after the Kilkenny game. We've won nothing yet. I've lost two All-Ireland under-21 finals, county finals, colleges finals and a Railway Cup final. So I've lost a lot more than I've won, and I wanted to come right back down to earth after the Kilkenny semi-final and no better place for that than work."

His place of work is Al Hayes Motors in Portumna. It's a true family-run affair with his father, Al, the commander-in-chief and Damien handling second-hand sales. It's hard to get away from hurling talk there, however.

"There is great excitement around Portumna," he says. "The flags are up even in our own business. People come in and all they want to talk about is hurling. Something I've not experienced for a while is a long summer of hurling like this."