Tipperary's Bryan O'Mara is relishing the prospect of a massive summer charge after putting the brakes on his senior hurling career to hit the "reset button".
Having helped UL to Fitzgibbon Cup glory, O'Mara opted out of the Premier set-up last year to spend the summer in America.
An All-Ireland winner at minor and U-21 level, O'Mara has long been tipped for big things on the senior stage. It's taken a little longer than anticipated, but he now looks ready to fire, shining in Tipp's 5-22 to 3-23 Munster SHC round-robin win against Clare last Sunday.
"The year out was great," he told RTÉ Sport at the launch of the FRS Recruitment GAA World Games.
"It was more of a reset button... just to be able to reset the mind gave me a fierce hunger to come back this year.
"It's been a lot of hard work so far, the championshp is after kicking off now, so now it's the enjoyable part.
"I'd a run of bad luck with injuries and then after Covid and stuff, I couldn't go anywhere. A lot of my friends were going on J1s and stuff and I thought, 'you know what? I'm just going to do it, I'll get to 30 and I'll regret never doing it'."
"It's just energy and hard work."
Tipp enjoyed a good Allianz Hurling League campaign, boasting a 100% record in Division 1B before giving Limerick a good game in the semi-finals.
It's helped to instil fresh confidence in Liam Cahill's charges, though O'Mara stresses there's nothing mysterious about their good form.
"There's no secret. There's no one thing that [the management[ bring - it's just energy and hard work. We're really enjoying it.
"Winning is a habit. We had a bit of success at underage level but that's a good few years ago now. We need to get that taste again and I feel like the league helped us to see that yes, we can win games. Hopefully we can take that forward."
Reflecting on the rigours and demands of modern inter-county hurling, O'Mara added: "You have to be adaptable. There can't be any one player saying, 'I'm not going to be able to play in the full-back line, or I'm not going to be able to play in the half-back line or midfield or even at wing-forward'. You have to be able to play everywhere - bar the goals maybe!
"It's relentless, that's the only word for it. There's no easy games but especially in Munster. It just goes to show how important the first game is and that's why we put such an emphais on Ennis."
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Listen to the RTÉ GAA Podcast on the RTÉ Radio Player, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts
