“What this current Galway group haven’t done is play in an All-Ireland final. These things are so massive,” McGrath said on this week’s hurling episode.<\/p>\n
“When you\u2019re going up for an All-Ireland final for the first time, first of all, there\u2019s a wall of noise that comes at you when you come out the tunnel that, no matter what you do, you cannot plan for.<\/p>\n
‘A wall of sound comes at you like nothing else you’re going to experience in your life’<\/p>\n
“You’ve been kind of pent up inside the in the dressing room, or you\u2019ve had a team meeting and the week has gone \u2013 and you should enjoy it.<\/p>\n
“But when that door opens and you hear that little noise coming down the tunnel, when you take that corner \u2013 and I\u2019m speaking as someone who has been lucky enough to do it \u2013 a wall of sound comes at you like nothing else you\u2019re going to experience in your life.<\/p>\n
“It takes you the warm-up to get used to that. So Limerick are used to all that, but as prepared as they are, what will the Galway boys do?”<\/p>\n
For teams experiencing the white heat of the final for the first time, there are some work-arounds that they can take on ahead of time in order to go someway to building that match-day feeling. McGrath’s Tipperary tried a few on for size ahead of their 2009 meeting with Kilkenny.<\/p>\n
“From my own experience, of our first time before we went up \u2013 and we\u2019re talking about one-percenters here \u2013 you would get the noise or the sound of Croke Park, you could get those noises and those sounds,” McGrath explained.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019d play it as loud as we physically should on our speaker or sound system in our stadium \u2013 so that\u2019s Semple Stadium for us. So that would be turned up to the last so that when you\u2019re playing you\u2019re A-versus-B, you\u2019d still be able to hear each other but not as comfortably as you normally would\u2026 because you won\u2019t hear each other on the day in Croke Park \u2013 so that\u2019s one thing teams do.”<\/p>\n
And to answer an age-old question, what does a masseur do when they’re not ironing out the kinks of a player’s tired legs and back at the end of a long summer? They stand in for the President of course.<\/p>\n
“The other thing, they will line-up and maybe do a mini-parade. Pre-parade, a lot of teams to get into the headspace of meeting the president, they will go through that,” McGrath added.<\/p>\n
“So, we ‘met\u2019 the President and the \u2018President\u2019 that day was a guy called Mick Clohessy, who was our masseur!<\/p>\n
![\"6](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/0024b3ad-614.jpg\"\/)
\n‘The experience from running out to that wall of noise in 2009 helped us in 2010’<\/p>\n
“For other teams, it might be the manager or a member of the backroom team and they\u2019re the \u2018President\u2019 for the day. All these things are trying to get you into a mindset to be as comfortable as you can in this uncomfortable environment on the day.”<\/p>\n
On the day itself – along with the noise – the pageantry of the whole affair can leave a squad short of time before throw-in to go through all of their usual pre-match rituals.<\/p>\n
On the same Sunday as the All-Ireland final, the World Cup final will take place and is set to include an extended, 25-minute half-time break<\/a> to allow maximum promotional opportunities.<\/p>\n Galway and Limerick don’t necessarily need more time at half-time. But a few extra minutes pre-match wouldn’t go amiss, with everything that will be going on on the day. Teams must prepare for this eventuality as best they can.<\/p>\n “Your warm-up is curtailed slightly because you have to meet the President and the parade and the anthems, maybe a moment\u2019s silence, all those things are factored in,” McGrath said.<\/p>\n “Limerick are used to all these things. For Galway it\u2019s their first time experiencing it and that is a factor too.<\/p>\n “I don\u2019t care what anyone says, playing in Croke Park, first of all, takes some getting used to. But playing in Croke Park on All-Ireland final day is a whole different level.<\/p>\n “The experience we got from running out to that wall of noise in 2009 helped us in 2010.<\/p>\n “They will not be able to hear a word anyone is saying on All-Ireland final\u2026 even the ref talking to you, in open play, they\u2019re not hearing each other. These are all the things you have to get used to.”<\/p>\n \n Listen to the RT\u00c9 GAA Podcast on the RT\u00c9 Radio Player<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>, and email us at sportpodcasts@rte.ie<\/p>\n Watch the All-Ireland Hurling Championship final, Galway v Limerick, on Sunday from 2.15pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow our live blog on all matches on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app and listen to commentary on RT\u00c9 Radio 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There’s plenty of tricks and tips a team can avail of to get them ready for the biggest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-551964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}