Mick wasn’t really in the humour for more conflict so he just let Sean participate in training and he kept his distance from Tommy, who was unusually quiet, watching the session from behind one of the goal posts. Mick ran the boys through their normal routine, starting them with a few warm-up exercises with Jimmy and then a couple of laps around the full length of the pitch while he set out the cones at the edge of the playing fields to benefit from the street lamps. ‘Right! Bring them in, Jimmy,’ yelled Mick, and everyone gathered around their coach, slightly red-faced and gasping for breath. ‘Well done, lads. Thanks, Jimmy,’ said Mick. Danny and his team-mates did fifteen minutes of different exercise techniques, from sprint racing in and out of the cones to dribbling the ball to passing the ball from one end to the other and then sprinting to the other end. Training for Littlestown Crokes was hard, but it kept Danny and the other players super-fit and that had a lot to do with why they were top of their league.
