LAST UPDATE | 14 Dec 2022

WHEN JOEY HOLDEN woke up and headed out to watch the All-Ireland hurling final at 8.30am in a San Francisco bar, he didn’t feel any regrets that he didn’t hang on for one more year in black and amber.

He was there in his Kilkenny jersey beside fellow retiree Colin Fennelly roaring on all their old teammates. They were out of their seats, leaping in the air, when Martin Keoghan goaled and Kilkenny fought their way back level.

Even had Kilkenny managed to outlast Limerick in those final moments, you sense Holden isn’t the type to latch onto regrets.

“No, not really,” agrees Holden. “When you get into Kilkenny, you give it as good a shot as you can and represent that jersey with as much pride and as much effort as you can; train hard, work hard, put everything into it because you’ll never get that chance again probably.

“But when your time is done, your time is done. You just take a back seat and try to support the lads that are in there whether it be through your friends or through plonking your arse on a seat to support them from the stands, that’s what you have to do.”

The plan was never for Holden to be back at Croke Park in December. He was travelling around North America and planning to head down Central and into South America.

But Fennelly was in his ear, egging him on, to come back, to park the travel for another year, to help Ballyhale Shamrocks to their fifth Kilkenny title in a row. It also meant he was home for the death of his father Patrick.

“I’m very grateful we were back at that stage because we wouldn’t have got to say our final goodbyes otherwise. Daddy wanted us all to hurl so much and then hurling brought us back in order to say goodbye to him.

“It’s been a rollercoaster of a year in that sense but we are still hurling away so we can’t complain.”

Holden was nervous returning to action without the usual pre-season but that was his motivation to do the extra graft on days off.

“That was just what I had in my head. I was just so nervous going into those first few games even though you’ve played them a lot. You’d be so nervous saying you don’t want to let these boys down after they let me back into the panel.”

Those nerves, however exaggerated by a lack of pre-season work, are something Holden has become practiced in dealing with over his career.

“I remember my first experience of nerves was as a young lad driving to a match on my own and I used to keep yawning. I was like, ‘Why am I yawning? I’m not tired.’

“Then I tried to go to bed even earlier. I was in bed at nine o’clock before one match, drove to the match, and I just kept yawning.

“That’s the way the nerves came out in me, just yawning even though I’m not tired.

“The nerves will still be there and you still have them butterflies in your stomach but you learn to deal with it better. You know what it is rather than trying to figure out what it is.”

There may be a few yawns on Sunday but not during those 60 minutes when fire and fury are unleashed. Especially not for a revenge mission to dethrone All-Ireland champions Ballygunner.

Fennelly stirred the pot with talk of disrespect but Holden didn’t read those comments. “I don’t know will it have much effect on the match on Sunday,” he says.

It took a last-minute goal to defeat Ballyhale last February but Holden knows how to give that blow the appropriate context.

“I’ve had lots of heart-breaking defeats over the years. That is just another one, unfortunately, to add to the list.

“You can’t dwell on these things too long. If you are dwelling on every time you lose in hurling you will be dwelling for an awful long time. The same if you dwell on wins, you will be dwelling for a long time.

“We’ve had life and death situations in our club which is far more relevant. When you see them sort of things it puts it more into perspective that ultimately, we’d have loved to win it, we will have ifs and buts about that game for a long, long time, but you just have to get up, get on with it, and look forward to the next game.”