After a players' meeting held the Saturday night before, where all the talk is about the lads giving up the drink for the whole year and lads never missing a training session, you approach this year with renewed hope that it would be different than the shambles that was last year.

You arrive in the door from work and forget that you’ve training in two hours time and eat the dinner, followed by tea and whatever biscuits are still left in the tin of USA biscuits from the Christmas.

No sooner do you stand up from the table than you remember you’ve to head down to training. Your brain hits overdrive as you try to think of an injury that you possibly could have...that you only sustained in the last forty-eight hours, because as you explained to the players in the smoking room in the local pub on Saturday night, you’ve never felt in better shape. That was some session, though, Saturday night.

You decide that you better head down to training (sure it might not be too bad after all it's the first night back and the manager won’t want to torture ye... After all, the players had no respect for him last year. Maybe he’ll go easy on you tonight while the other lads are running laps. You grab the jacket and the gear bag and head for the door. You remember you're going without the fags, but you reckon your better off not bringing them. After all, you told the lads you were off them!!!

You pull in to the pitch and see lads sitting in cars looking out at some lad whose setting out cones all round the field, you decide to head in to the dressing room, show the lads how serious you are!!!

You wander in and find the manager and three selectors standing there chatting...but if they're in here, then whose out there putting down the cones? They explain that they’ve got an Army lad in for the next 2 months to get ye in good shape... You feel the spuds churning in your stomach... Something tells you, you’ll see them again before the night is out.

You break out the brand new gear and a few lads admire the flashy new boots you bought. €180 you inform them... They're the same as Whelan and Munnelly wear. You check the cogs, which look like something NASA came up with, but you reckon it’ll give you that extra yard in training.

You chat to the same lads whom you only spoke to last year. The same lads who arrived late last year, are arriving late as you head out the dressing room door and into the bitterly cold January night air. It most definitely wasn’t this cold earlier on.

You run on to the pitch and survey the cones laid out. It's hard to know exactly what sort of football drills this lad is likely to be using here... You then notice that there’s actually not an O’Neills football in sight. Your run slows down to a jog, then to a walk...no point over doing it yet!!!

Training starts at 8, although its 8.15 and lads are still coming out on to the field... Little do they realise that everytime a lad comes after 8 your trainer adds on an extra lap to be run at the end of training by everyone.

You start off training by running aimlessly over and back across the field... Every now and again the trainer shouts for ye to sprint...but your already at full tilt to stay with them as it is. After 10-15 mins of agony, ye stop for stretching. This apparently was only the warm up...

After you’ve finished stretching, ye proceed to run around the field for what seems an eternity, but what the trainer informs you has only been twelve minutes. At this stage, your lungs are killing you and you regret ever taking up smoking forty a day and your dinner is slowly working its way back up your stomach!!!

Your also well sick of the county minor player lapping you on these runs...who does he think he is? It comforts you a huge amount when you discover that he’s recently been dropped off the panel, yet still trained tonight in the gear that you know his mother went out & bought him!!!

Another firty-five mins of running laps, sprints, shuttle runs, sit ups, push ups and more laps, the trainer says one final lap to finish up. This is your moment to shine. You decide to hit the front early and set the pace... You go full pelt...you feel fitter, faster and stronger than ever before. You might have died for the last hour and a half or so but now you're going to show them.

Forty yards in to the run...you hit your 10th brick wall of the night and lads coast out by you. You try to stay going, but every step feels like a knife in the chest. Finally, you give up and walk the last half a lap, where the other lads are just finished stretching!!! You try and stretch but your legs feel like two concrete pillars so you decide there’s no point & head in to the dressing room... A hot shower is just what you need!!!

You're greeted at the door by the Chairman who informs ye all that no one turned on the boiler for the showers so there’s no hot water in it!!! You throw on the clothes and scab a cigeratte off one of the lads before you get in the car to drive home.

As you drive home, you thank God you're the only goalie in the club. They won’t see you at training again till mid March!!!