Mencius, Confucian philosopher

RESPECT SUNDAY, September 12, 2004, and after two titans have clashed, two titans embrace.

As a red tsunami is about to engulf Croke Park, Henry Shefflin asks the first man to outplay him in three years can they swap jerseys.

There is no opponent Sean Og O hAilpin respects more but he can't comply. "Sorry, but this is for a man in Limerick."

In Gerard Hartmann's Sports Injury Clinic at the bottom of Patrick Street, Limerick, there are hundreds of memorabilia items and testimonials either displayed or stored away. In a drawer there's the number plate Sonia O'Sullivan wore winning the 1995 world championships;

running spikes Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson gave him. Downstairs in the rehab work-out room, there's a signed poster from Lance Armstrong. In the reception area a woman beams down, two Olympic medals around her neck, in a massive poster half-taken up with the note: "Without you I might not even be running so everything I achieve from now is because of you. You have given me hope and belief when I've been at my lowest and that is the most important gesture you can ever give an athlete. Gerard, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Kelly Holmes."

Alongside that are tributes from Paula Radcliffe, five-time world triathlon champion Simon Lessing, Eamon Coghlan, Sonia ("Thanks for putting me back on track; take good care of those never-tiring hands"), three-time world champion Moses Kiptanui, former world, New York and London city marathon winner Douglas Wakiihuri ("Gerard, your touch is a miracle. Thank you") and tens of other Kenyan champions, praising the gifts of the man they call Daktari.

In this pantheon of greats though there is a hierarchy. The most visible tribute in the building is in framed in the treatment room, the place O hAilpin calls Pleasuredome. It hangs close to and above the table. It is a red jersey which reads:

Ger. Thanks for the belief.

Respect.

Sean Og.

CONSOLIDATION MONDAY, July 17, 2006, and days before they each play an All Ireland quarterfinal, Sean Og O hAilpin of Cork and Eoin Kelly of Tipperary are in the basement of Hartmann's clinic. Kelly is on his way to yet another All Star but it's another All Ireland he craves. "If you want to reach the top in any sport, " he says, "you have to gauge yourself against the guys who are the top.

In hurling that's Sean Og."

Kelly is wearing Adidas gear. O hAilpin is sponsored by the same company but is shirtless. It's easy to see why. While Kelly is on the floor, working out in tandem with Hartmann's assistant Ger Keane, O hAilpin is on an elevated board, beside Hartmann who looks the freshest 45year-old you know but feels "like a flippin' plough horse up against George Washington here".

They start with some leg raises and stretches.

"Head down, " says Hartmann. "Catch your feet fully if you can, Sean Og, and stretch. That's good now. Feel that? You have great movement there. A little bit of improvement needed there, Eoin; your back is very tight. You're about 10 inches away from your nose touching your knee.

Watch Sean Og here; he's coming completely down; his nervous system isn't blocking him. That's why a lot of lads are getting hamstring pulls; because of their nervous system, not their muscles. When you're running, the nervous system is pulling and then you jam and the hamstring goes into spasm. Try the other side and you'll find one side tighter than the other. Head down now. Feel that, pulling?"

Sean Og grimaces. "Yeah."

"It's not a nice feeling, is it? It's a nerve feel."

"It's tighter this side than my other side, like."

"We can work that bit more so. Head down, Eoin. Good man. Okay lads, we'll go into the core now."

On that, the partners in pain move through a series of strange positions, like gymnasts on acid playing Twister. One is called Squash The Spider. First they kneel down, raise one arm out in front, raise the opposite leg and then flatten the foot as if squashing a spider on the roof. Now they're holding themselves up sideways on one arm and raising the opposite leg.

"Feel it here, Eoin?" says Hartmann.

"Burning up?"

Kelly's entire body is shaking. "Oh man, burning up, boy!"

They finish that set. "You've come on Trojan, Eoin, " says Hartmann. "You've toned up a lot now."

"Keeping the core is the key, isn't it?"

"You have to do it. Because when you were here in November, you were like a little porky pig. Now at least you're trimmed up. I bet you're not wearing the same pants, are you?"

"Jesus, " laughs Kelly, "no way!"

"Your count now, Eoin. Shout."

"Okay. Onef twof threef" You look on, realising what Ger Keane said earlier in reception is so true. "People hear 'Oh, Sean Og was up with Hartmann last week' but they have no concept of the effort that's expended in that room.

And it's very humbling to see. Because you begin to realise that for a star to be up on stage, the work they do is so mundane and anybody can do it. The difference is, they decide to do it."

Now Sean Og looks on. "In the next life, " he winces, "I'm coming back as a reporter."

Next up is the step test. It involves stepping up and down 20 times the 16-inch table that Hartmann and O hAilpin were lying on earlier. The record is 12.78 seconds set by Colin Jackson. For now. O hAilpin warms up furiously.

"Okay, " says Hartmann. "Like the clappers now, like there's no tomorrow. Ready?

Go!"

Machine-gun fire fills the room.

Hartmann stops his clock. "Fair going.

Slightly better than [Ronan] O'Gara but off the mark. 13.69."

"13.69? Alright."

He'll get another chance; first, Kelly must get his. It doesn't go well. While O hAilpin just touches the board, Kelly nearly feels he has to stand on it. Another problem. "Use your hands, " says Hartmann. "You have your hands down here, trying to work from your hips only. Eighteen seconds! We'll go again in a minute.

"Right, Sean Og. I want full, full, full speed ahead now. This is the full Monty, now; this is full on. Okay. Ready? Go!"

Eoin Kelly claps. "Good work."

Sean Og: "What did I get?"

Hartmann: "13.13."

Sean Og: "Okay. F**k it!"

Hartmann: "Now, Eoin. You want to get at least two seconds faster. Use your arms. And don't forget, there's no law that you have to stand on it completely."

Sean Og: "Run on fire."

Hartmann: "Action to reaction. Ready?

Go!"

Hartmann: "Excellent! 15.28. You've shaved two and a half seconds off there by involving your arms."

Sean Og: "Great stuff, Eoin, boy!"

Minutes later Kelly catches a Powerade Sean Og passes to him and dashes off to a summer camp to make some kids' day in Borrisokane. Sean Og isn't going anywhere. Must consolidate. There's the wobble board, the ball but now, the stairs.

The stairs he hated. The stairs he loves.

O Fiji go Corcaigh go Pairc an Chrocaigh was quite a trip yet in a way, climbing those stairs was the biggest journey of all.

BELIEF IT'S 9pm, Thursday, May 24, 2001 and Sean Og O hAilpin is in a smashed car outside Templemore. His right kneecap has been blown off, and now his car door has been torn off by the five fellas in the other car who "look like they're going to kick the shit out of me". Then they recognise him.

Jesus, it's Sean Og. Isn't he meant to be playing Limerick on Sunday?

Three months later he's in a hospital and the doctor has just taken off the cast. The leg's like a twig, nine inches thinner in circumference than it will be in five years' time. He cries, grabs the cast and shouts "Where the feck is the other half of my leg?"

He visits Alan Kelly, his regular therapist in Dublin. Kelly isn't short of confidence. The first time DJ Carey arrived at the practice, Kelly shook his hand and went, "Ah, Jaysus, DJ, it's your pleasure to meet me! I'm the Great AK!" And DJ's one of the worthy ones. You might have your All Irelands but if you don't have your All Star, your picture doesn't go up on that wall. Now the Great AK is looking at Sean Og's leg and lets him in on a little secret.

"I relinquished my title in 1997 when Gerard moved home from Florida. If I can't fix you, I'll send you down to Limerick. If he can't fix you, you're going to Lourdes."

Gerard Hartmann had never heard of Sean Og O hAilpin before Kelly rang. He had dealt with few GAA players outside the Clare hurlers he treated out of his friendship with Colum Flynn and most of those others didn't adhere well to instruction. He was a physical therapist to 53 Olympic medalists; why waste himself with an amateur? Kelly promised him O hAilpin was different. He was. "Within a week, " says Hartmann, "I knew his integrity was phenomenal."

So was Hartmann's empathy. In August 1991, three days after securing his seventh national triathlon title, Hartmann was back in Florida, cycling along his regular training route when an armadillo came out of the bushes. It got tangled in his front wheel, throwing him up into the air and breaking his leg and hip before he was airlifted to hospital. When Sean Og told him that the day after his own accident he had asked the doctor, "I'll be back for the Munster final though, right?", Hartmann smiled. In '91 he had been in denial as well, thinking his leg, with its metal plate and four metal pins, would be back cycling within a week. He understood the fear and depression that came with realising what had happened; it had taken Hartmann himself seven years to get back on a bike.

So he explained the facts. He could come back; Steve Smith, the high jumper had, to win an Olympic bronze medal. It was going to take a long while though, maybe more than a year. And football with Cork was gone.

"Ger was very realistic, " says Sean Og.

"He brought out this skeleton and showed me exactly what had happened and what we needed to do to get the flexibility into the leg."

Four months later they were on the stairs. As usual, Sean Og double-hopped one step.

"Now, " said Hartmann, "do four."

"You're not serious, Ger."

"Do it."

"You're not f***in' serious, Ger."

"Do it."

He felt the leg. A voice in his head told him it was too sore; it would get injured again. But the voice of Justin McCarthy's was there too. Justin was coaching Na Piarsaigh that summer of 2001 and had also broken his leg in a road accident as a 24-year-old. "Be patient, " he had said, "and do what the doctor says." The Kenyans on the reception hall wall were nearly urging him on too. "Do what Daktari says." So he did.

"And after that, " says arguably the most popular sportsman in Ireland, "my confidence went from two percent to two thousand and two percent. I came down those stairs, saying, 'If that man tells me to go 10, I'll do it.'" He now had The Belief.

Jimmy had given The Support. He still does. Jimmy is Jimmy McEvoy, logistics manager of the Cork hurlers, and friend, neighbour and shadow of Sean Og's for years. It was Jimmy who would drive him up once a fortnight to Limerick and Jimmy who would watch him train three times a day back in Cork; at home, in local GAA and soccer pitches; in rain, wind and mud.

"There were times when I wanted to tell him to get lost and leave me alone, " says Sean Og, "but he never did."

McEvoy and Hartmann are close too.

The summer Hartmann started treating O hAilpin, he was working in London for Kim McDonald's agency and needed a masseur. McEvoy was one to the Cork hurlers at the time so Hartmann invited him over. On McEvoy's second day, a journeyman Kenyan runner called Luke 'Luca' Kipkoech came into Hartmann. "Daktari, I have a pain." He had a swollen stomach.

And when they went to hospital, chronic leukemia and a year to live.

The following day 67 athletes on McDonald's books met in Strawberry Hill College at Hartmann's request. He spoke passionately about the gift of life and how there was still a chance Luca could have it if £120,000 sterling was raised for a bone marrow transplant. "Look, most of us here have done well from athletics.

Now we must be good to an athlete. I'm putting in $10,000 dollars here and Sonia's matching me." By the end of the meeting they had $75,000.

The following morning McEvoy knocked on Hartmann's door. He hadn't slept a wink. He couldn't, not after Hartmann's speech. His own father had died from leukemia the previous November.

Could he match Hartmann's $10,000?

Hartmann was blown away. "Sure you can't, Jimmy." McEvoy insisted. He had won the lotto a few years earlier, gave to good causes. Luca was only 28, married with two kids. This was a good cause.

Luca Kipkoech is still alive today.

Hartmann had noticed though that the one person Jimmy wasn't looking after was himself. One day they went for a walk by the Shannon banks, the same route where in the late summer of 2002 he suggested to Sean Og he and his colleagues should maybe strike ("No gym membership? Sloppy logistics?"). Now Hartmann was saying, "Jim, you won't be around when you're 40 unless you do something."

This spring Jimmy ran the Rome marathon. In the last year he's lost four stone. Now when he brings the limousine that is Sean Og up to Limerick for "the service", Jimmy avails of one too.

"A lot of friends go out for dinner, go for drinks, " says Jimmy. "This is what we do.

Come up here, go through the core sessions, the rub; then go for lunch, have a chat."

Now they're in Pleasuredome, having a chat while Sean Og's having a rub. They talk about Setanta. "He inspires me, " says Sean Og. "How? Okay. You try being a 19year old, just getting the name of a guy, flying to Melbourne, a flight you've never done before; you don't know what the guy looks like; you're on the flight saying 'What the hell am I doing this for?' You land into Melbourne at six in the morning with just a gear bag, 12,000 miles from homef And there he is, less than three years later, playing senior football for Carlton. No other Irish kid would do that."

They mention Hartmann's upcoming wedding. Frank O'Mara and Marcus O'Sullivan will be the groomsmen. Sonia will be there too. But not even Paula will.

Only 45 people will. Sean Og and Jimmy included.

They talk about Sean Og's goals. At the end of every year he sits down and asks how he can get better. After 2004, he figured it was time he scored his first championship point for Cork. ("Remember Killarney [against Tipp], Ogie, " says Jim.

"Got the ball in midfield. Nosebleed!") To win another All Ireland, Cork would maybe need him to get two a summer. He asked John Allen if he could join in with the forwards' shooting drills. He got his two points and Cork got another All Ireland.

He's publicly said a goal for '06 has been to make the top-five in the 20-metre sprints in Cork training. How's that going?

"Still working on it. Still working on it."

Maybe it's too tough. You can't control how fast the others are going.

"Well, I'm definitely up there like. But I'm up against lads that genetically have faster twitch fibres than me, like Timmy Mc[Carthy], Tom Kenny. If we had to drop tools, five laps there, I'd run every one of them under the ground. So I'm just trying to be greedy and be the best in everything but I've got to accept the fact that I probably can't [in the sprints]. But what I try to do is that if I can't beat them, at least try to get within three yards of them. All you can do is your very best, like."

That's why he's here, having taken a day off work with Ulster Bank. Doing the pre-hab below ("It's better than rehab"), working on the core ("You look at Sean Og, " says Ger Keane, "and his whole carriage is upright. Most players, in the last 15 minutes, they sag, they're out of air because their ribcage is closed"), getting the rub ("It's not comfortable, " says Sean Og "but after Ger stretches me, I feel like the elastic man in Fantastic Four."). He feels blessed. The accident was actually a blessing.

"Before, I thought I was invincible. Didn't know my body, didn't listen to it. But I'm a good believer in fate. And maybe the accident was The Man Above's way of steering me towards Ger. I reckon it's no coincidence since Ger, I've won more individual honours; I'm even up on AK's wall now. If I hadn't met Ger, I'd probably not be as possessed. When I got injured early on in the year, [team trainer] Jerry Wallis was saying 'Jesus, we need you back to push it an extra yard.' Maybe it should be the young fellas doing it. Like, Donal Og [Cusack] and myself, we don't really need to win any more All Irelands like."

But they want more. Because ultimately it's about those two words, the one Ger starts every meeting or text message with, and the one Sean Og finishes every meeting or text message between them with.

Consolidation.

Respect.