It was a respite from the more serious Fitzgibbon Cup. The pressure of the universities' senior hurling competition is intense and scholarship students are supposed to perform, in addition to coping with course work. Helping out in the GAA office, writing a few PR posters and match reports, and organising the hurling club's social events is also part of being on scholarship. The stereotype, however, of the impoverished student subsisting on pasta rations doesn't really apply to me because of the financial perks of the scholarship. The environment is nearly, dare I say the word, professional.
Universities are the academies of hurling - the schools of excellence.
I can see a time when they will operate as minor leagues for pro hurling. Young talented athletes, who have chosen the Gaelic route, are now sensing a revolution.