Emmet Moloney writes for the 'Farmers Journal' and is a former sports columnist with 'The Kerryman'.

It’s a new year and the resolutions have been made. Many counties have pledged to do everything to win the All-Ireland in 2009, but only two will be successful. Emmet Moloney is looking forward to it...

Once we passed the first day of January the GAA’s restriction on collective training was lifted, so it is now all hands to the tiller in an effort to steer towards All-Ireland glory. County panels can now train in the open. Don’t kid yourself, most of them have been doing something for the past few weeks anyway.

I know of a minor hurler, recently called up to his county panel, who has been given a list of exercises to undertake and food to eat. All of those have been tailored to his personal needs after a series of tests carried out by experts in a university training facility. And all of that over a month ago. The minor panel! You know things are getting serious when 16- and 17-year-olds are being measured for body fat.

But that’s the world we live in. Success doesn’t come cheap and it doesn’t come without a series of mind-boggling preparations. Once upon a time, a county panel arrived on a spring night to training. They did a few laps, played a game of backs and forwards and went home. No showers. No running cones. No pasta. No physio. No more than two or three sliotars. In my day a trainer of ours would run us around the field for 15 minutes, then he’d do a quick head count before we played a match.

“How many have we? Thirteen? Right so, seven a side it is!”

If you happen to attend a county panel’s training session over the coming weeks you will probably see more people on the sideline than you do on the field. Besides a manager, there will be a physical coach, selectors, kit man, physio, doctor, logistics, stats man, county board liaison – we are already in double figures (unless, of course, you happen to see the Cork A hurling team training – I believe they are back to basics).

All of these are costing something per session. In 1995, when Clare won the All-Ireland, they had something like 180 training sessions. Today that is old hat. There is now at least two week nights, a get together on a Saturday morning and usually a match on the Sunday.

Some GAA folk simplistically think that Brian Cody just turns up, throws the ball in and lets the Kilkenny panel get on with tearing strips off each other for an hour. He then simply goes home and picks the team come Sunday and it all works out for the best. Nothing is that simple. The Cats do all the stuff with diet, fitness, stats and the rest. It’s an edge and if there is one going Cody will look at it as quick as the next man. It’s a race to the top and, forget your recession, there will be plenty of counties in there throwing money at the county team.

This week, traditionally, the players themselves mentally get down to business. They have to do more than just show up three or four times a week for training. They have to “mind themselves”. Easier said than done. A county player seen in the pub between now and the championship runs the risk of being branded a “drinker” who is tearing the panel apart. Try that monastic existence for six months. You’d change your mind about that useless so-and-so on your county team if you knew what he puts in.

Relax, I’m not on a players rant here. They have a choice when their county comes calling and the real men answer that call. I’m just reminding you how high the stakes are in January, because a lot of players, when asked when the All-Ireland was won, usually say January. Because that’s the hardest month to run out onto a field wearing shorts. Or in 2009, it is the hardest month to run up and down a hill or over and back through a beach. In zero temperatures with the wind and rain howling. That’s when you find out about fellas. About whether they have the heart for it.

During Jack O’Shea’s managerial reign in Mayo, much was made of his preference for having players build strength by pushing vehicles around car parks. It was laughed at. Now it appears ahead of its time. Physical trainers are vying with each other now to come up with something novel but cruel and unusual just the same. And there you are just trying to give up the fags!

But January is also a time of hope. Because the darkest hour is just before dawn. Somewhere out there is a dedicated group of 30-odd fellas running around an army assault course. Shouting in their ears is the physical trainer from hell. He probably has an army background anyway and the assault course was his idea. The manager and his retinue of 15 assembled backroom staff look on.

The county board man is worried about the cost of feeding all these people after paying them mileage just to get there. The selectors are looking at each other wondering what the hell this has to do with hurling. The physio has a sneaking suspicion that just because she is pretty, some of the lads are making up these niggles just to get a rub. The stats man is wondering how the hell he can make a sheet up from this exercise? The doctor is just waiting for someone to fall off the rope and break something. The kit man is looking bewildered because he gave out 32 bibs and can only count 29 suffering on the obstacle course.

The manager is listening to the players and their suffering, which is not in silence. Many are shouting out Our Lord’s name in vain. Maybe I need a priest as well, he thinks to himself. He has to cover all the bases!

There, but for the grace of Brian Cody and Mickey Harte, go the All-Ireland champions of 2009, in January of this year.

It could be you.

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