Weldrick came from a soccer background and was soon revolutionising the training regimen.“We were just organised and professional”, Spillane reflects. “And remember you had more or less 15 guys that had played senior inter county football. You had a B team that had half a dozen players who had played inter county football.Weldrick had an inter-county side living together. An inter-county team that you could do collective training with. We trained everyday, we videoed our training sessions and we analysed our games, we looked at our faults and we looked at tactics.We were a machine, where everyone had a role to play.”

The team came through the Limerick championship, though they were generally despised in the county and had to get a solicitor on board to ensure they weren't defeated off the field, though at times the team was drawn from questionable sources.“The teams we were playing in the earlier rounds… because lads were gone away to America working for the summer and that, Jesus you'd have any 15. You'd have 5 or 6 good players and a collection of everyone and anyone”, he jokes.

With the Limerick championship in the bag, they came up against Austin Stacks of Kerry in the semi-final of the Munster championship not once, but four times following three drawn encounters.“They were phenomenal games; they were four of the greatest matches. When the history of the club championships is ever written, they'll be right up there. Christ the standard was&he
llip;”, and for once he's lost for words.

Thomond went on to win the All-Ireland in 1979, with a facile win over St. John's of Antrim (2-14 to 1-3). Spillane captained the side from full forward though by that stage most of the side had graduated from college and the night before the final he slept on an apartment floor in Limerick.

****

Pat Spillane is rushing now. It's nearly two o'clock and work is already building up for him in the RTE sports department. He has a file of documents under his arm and a suit packed for later on. He has read every newspaper and article in anticipation of another hectic GAA weekend. It's all percolating in his head as he closes the boot on a blue BMW in the car park.

“It's hard to explain, Football is a drug, it's my life. My schedule last week, there was a club meeting on Monday, I reffed an under 10s match on Tuesday, Thursday I trained the under 14s”.On Tuesday he'll write his Sunday World column, the week will gather momentum and it won't be long before he's back here, racing out to RTE with another pile of newspapers under his arm. He drives out the gates and you find that driven is the most apt word to sum up a man who should never have played football after 1981.“The glass is always half full with me”. It really is that simple.