It wasn’t any particular cathartic moment, more a gradual realisation that something needed to be checked.
ustin Gleeson didn’t need to be told, he knew anyway. But even when he did hear it, the echo filled his head that bit more with a sense of urgency - it was time to get a career that had promised so much at the outset back on track.
For the first few weeks of the first lockdown this time 12 months ago, he treated it like another off-season and used it to spend more time with family. With no immediate return in sight he had time which, in his own words, he “never really had before”.
But in the back of Gleeson’s mind was 2019 and before that 2018, two seasons that passed him and Waterford by without a championship win.
As their most talented player, the young man who swept to ‘Hurler of the Year’ and ‘Young Hurler of the Year’ awards in 2016, despite Waterford falling short in an All-Ireland semi-final replay to Kilkenny, was always the face, the starting point for any post mortem into that sequence of losses and one draw through back-to-back summers.
How did he play? Where did he play? Was he switched on? Was he switched off? What sort of condition was he in? Scrutiny at every turn.
When Limerick came to Walsh Park in 2019 for their third game in the Munster round robin and crushed Waterford by 20 points, he was gone by half-time. Less than three years on from leaving the Convention Centre on Dublin’s quays with gongs in either hand, his career felt like it had reached its nadir.
Time off provided more space for reflection. And he knew he had to move, having “fallen into a hole again” as he put it in a Facebook post when he presented his new physique in comparative pictures that highlighted a new chiselled frame on the cusp of the return of competitive action last summer.
“It was nothing to do with anyone else. It was all down to me,” he recalled. “Either I take shape now and get it in my head that if I don’t buck up in the next two to three months, my career could literally go by the wayside,” he reflected.
“That’s not what I wanted. I was 24 and having these thoughts, it was a bit of a kick in the stomach to myself. It was just having the time to sit down and realise that that was the case.
“If I don’t, I thought, God knows what way my career will go, that was in the back of my head. I knew from the experience of talking to the lads, if I didn’t get myself right in their eyes and my eyes, I shouldn’t be playing. So I knew I had to get myself right. And that was the biggest thing, just getting myself in that shape to be able to compete for a place on the team.”
His problems were multi-dimensional. “It was a mixture of everything, confidence, fitness. Once your confidence is down, there is nothing you can do as a player other than try and go again. But when your fitness is down, it’s tougher again and you are doubting yourself in every possible way as a hurler, as anything really.
“So it was a case of just sitting down and saying to yourself ‘you need to cop on here and just start working harder than maybe I have been for the last 18 months to two years.’
“I was having little niggly injuries too, which were really annoying over the previous couple of years. I felt myself getting there and then a small niggly injury could have me on a sideline for three or four weeks. I’m the type of player that needs to be on the field training constantly. I never really had these kind of injuries until that gap in the last two or three years.
“It was dealing with that too which, to be fair, I had a lot of good people around me to help me with. Once I got it into my own head that this is what I needed to do, it was 70 per cent of the battle.”
His Waterford colleagues, Shane McNulty and Jake Dillon, had been clients of Ian Keohan, a personal fitness trainer on the outskirts of the city, and as word began to surface that there would be a return to play at some stage in the summer, Gleeson found himself drawn towards him for guidance.
They only met up twice over the next nine weeks, with all other contact through a screen and pictures.
Keohan would provide running and weights programmes, involving barbells and dumbells, and a food plan to follow.
Gleeson would present pictures of himself each week for Keohan to critique. It was new territory for someone who could always count on his natural skill as a haven in difficult times.
“I never had that opportunity to do it because of the on-field commitment. You always need your energy in reserve, you always need a good amount of food,” he reflected.
“To be honest I don’t know why I decided to do it, I think I was in that place. In my mind, there is an opportunity now, either go one way or another. You go backwards or you can make a huge step forward and in my head, it was just something that I needed to do.
“I am over the moon that I did it. It was hard, you’re eating very little, but it was eight or nine weeks and I couldn’t be happier and recommend it enough.”
Even on days when he could see no improvement, Keohan would identify areas where there had been gain and the positive feedback would fortify Gleeson for another week.
Naturally, he was reluctant to post the ‘then and now’ contrast pictures that illustrated so vividly a loss of between nine and 10 kilos. But he felt an obligation to promote the guidance of Keohan in that time nonetheless.
“I hated it, I wouldn’t be one to do that kind of stuff. But I wanted to help Ian out because, to be honest, if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have been in the shape that I was in. I wanted to give something back to him.”
But there was another even more significant shift in his life that made a difference in that time. It’s just over 12 months since he joined TQS Integration, a Lismore-based company that provides integration to manufacturers.
They were Waterford sponsors through those two ‘winless’ championship campaigns but remained on into 2020 and their loyalty was underpinned by the employment of four of the current Waterford hurling squad.
Gleeson was among them, having drifted from job to job in banking and sales that he felt no strong connection to.
TQS had a role that required a stronger technical grasp that a Waterford IT business graduate might initially have but Gleeson was immediately sold, revelling in the stability and certainty of what he was doing.
“It was the biggest thing that could have happened to me at the time. I was in and out out of jobs for the last few years, in and out of college. I had no structure in my life. There were days when I might not get out of bed until noon and lounge around for the day,” he admitted.
“I had no routine. Once I got the job with TQS and got a set routine, I could plan my day around everything. I could plan the whole week around everything. I was feeling happier as a person really, because I had this routine, because I had a job, a good solid job. It was strange for me at first and I had to work hard at it but it was just having that routine which was massive.
“I just dived head-first into it and I started to grasp things every day. Even now, every day is a learning day.
“I was like a fish out of water at first but within three months I was getting things because of the training provided, it was second to none. It involved breaking down computers and systems left right and centre, massive learning. The company really takes an interest in all their employees.
“I’m the kind of person... ‘sales’ wouldn’t have been my go-to. I wouldn’t be one to push someone into making a sale so it didn’t really suit me. Then this came up, with normal hours, an office job for want of a better way to put it.
“I could be constantly overthinking things without even realising it. In this job, you are in it. You would be thinking of it outside of work if an issue comes in but there is an ability to switch off, so when I finish work I can generally do that and go and do a bit of training or a walk, a set routine which is a huge thing.
“Some people might find it boring but I crave it, I never find it boring. It’s the same every day but that’s something I needed.”
That happier sentiment was subsequently transferred on to the field, first for Mount Sion and then for Waterford.
Fitter, faster, stronger, more confident, his hurling flowed. There were still blemishes, like the first half against Kilkenny when he struggled on so many fronts, but Waterford’s thundering second half had its source in the inspiration provided by their mercurial talent every bit as much as Stephen Bennett or Jamie Barron that night.
In the final, they met a “far superior” team whose physical power is “years ahead” and something they reflected hard upon in the weeks after.
The Waterford manager, Liam Cahill, had detected a flatness in a practice match in the weekend between the semi-final and final that may have led to a dip in collective performance. Gleeson kept his side of the bargain though, whipping over five points including a sideline, despite his team being so far adrift.
“To be fair, Liam was right. We played the lads coming on - Darragh Lyons, Patrick Curran, Conor Gleeson - they were hopping off us, they were like men possessed. Maybe in the back of a few of the lads’ heads they were thinking ‘we don’t want to get injured here a week before we play an All-Ireland final’ but the others tore into us, it was unreal in a way to see their desire. If anything, personally, it gave me an extra drive.”
Cahill’s hunger and the collective hunger of a group that feels they had left two seasons behind them was a perfect recipe to press forward. In the midst of them was a talent that wanted to make up lost ground.
The physical, confrontational nature of his game that he has always had wasn’t dulled by his new look or mindset. Against Cork, an incident involving Séamus Harnedy was overlooked when it might have earned him a retrospective suspension but it’s a part of his make up that he feels he will always have and need.
“It is something that I always did, no matter what age I was. I don’t think I’m going to change. It’s just something I grew up doing so it is hard to change out of your game. You grow up and stop making ridiculously stupid challenges but playing on the edge was always something I was going to do,” he acknowledged.
