ABBEYDORNEY last Thursday night. Temperatures dropping. Ice forming on windscreens. Floodlights cranking up. Cars pulling into the carpark. Hurlers alighting knowing there's a tough couple of hours in prospect. Laps. Drills. Hooking. Blocking. Chasing. Glamorous it ain't.

It's a scene replicated up and down the country. Footballers and hurlers. Rugby players and soccer players. The hard graft. The hard yards. This is when the work gets done. It mightn't look much, it mightn't be pleasant, but this is where dreams are made.

It's also the last place John Meyler expected to find himself. He'd been here before. He played with and managed his native Wexford, he played with and acted as a selector in his adopted Cork, he'd even done it with the Kingdom in the 90s. What then was he doing in Abbeydorney?

"Sure what else would I be doing," he says with a grin.

He wasn't meant to be here. He never planned on being here. When Joe Walsh called him looking for advice about who the next Kerry manager should be he gladly obliged. Bit by bit he built up a picture of the type of manager that the Kerry Hurling Officer should be looking to recruit. Bit by bit that picture that began to form in Walsh's mind was that of Meyler. He had all the attributes that Meyler suggested he should be on the look out for.

He'd been there and done that at the highest level and crucially had a knowledge of Kerry hurling stretching back well over a decade. Having overseen the Kerry U-21s All Ireland victory last autumn this was clearly the man to take Kerry into the future.

"Joe said to me look you'll do it then and that was that," Meyler says.

Now that he's back he couldn't be happier. Sitting, shooting the breeze, in the Abbeydorney clubhouse his passion for hurling and for the Kingdom is undeniable.

"I said it tonight coming down in the car that I just feel happy here. Contented here. I've spent eighteen years in Kerry, I've spent less in Kilmoyley. I'm more content here than I am anywhere else. There's a peacefulness about it, I enjoy it. I suppose it's different. You're respected more, there's more thanks, there's more thought of you, more gratitude compared to other jobs I've had," he says.

One of the first items on his agenda was to call on Pat Flanagan. The pilgrimage to IT Tralee to meet with the Waterford native has become something of a ritual for managers of Kerry teams ever since Jack O'Connor called upon his services during his first stint (and, indeed, his second) as Kerry boss.

If Meyler was looking for the input of a Waterford man with a sports science background to help bring his new charges to another level then he lucked out. No Flanagan wasn't going to get directly involved, but he knew a fellow deise man who could.

"Pat strongly reccomended Joe O'Connor's training and told me he was very good. I didn't know Joe I hadn't met him, but he brings a professionalism to it. Training methods and all of that have moved on enormously over the last few years. I would consider myself of the old school really. The way we trained in the 80s and 90s compared to the way players train now, there's a world of difference.

"Joe will bring cutting edge training to the Kerry hurlers. They have a fierce repsect for him and they're giving him a great response. I bring the hurling, I bring the organsiation and the management to it and the knowledge of teams and things like that and Joe brings the technical fitness. I think you need that kind of a set up nowadays," Meyler says.

It may be an obvious thing to say, but Kerry is overwhelmingly an football county. The inclination of hurling folk might be to ignore that, to focus solely on the small ball tradition in the Kingdom and plough a lone furrow. Not John Meyler. He saw Kerry football, the success, the tradition as a boon. A great untapped source of knowhow to be utilised.

Even before he took the job

he was suggesting as much to Joe Walsh, once he took the job it was something he was determined to pursue. Having selected Kerry hurling legend John Hennessy as his first selector he decided upon a different course for his second. He brought in Seanie O'Shea. Dr Crokes stalwart, All Ireland club winning footballer, brother of All Ireland winning manager Pat.

O'Shea has hurling pedigree, he hurled under Meyler in the 90s with Kerry, but it was his football background as much as anything Meyler hoped to tap. "Seanie had success with Dr Crokes from a football point of view and while he didn't know anybody he sees what's wrong even though he doesn't know the players, but he's getting to know the players better now," Meyler continues.

"I think that the football fraternity can help the hurling in a real manner by the experience that a lot of these guys who've managed Minor and U-21 teams and what they can lend to it. I was saying to Joe at the time that you need to get somebody, the likes of John Kennedy, somebody like that who has won All Irelands and knows what it takes and to try and transfer the organisation over to hurling and to be as professional as you can."

For a man who describes himself as old school his hurling philosophy is traditional. He wants players who can hurl, he wants players with pace, and he wants them to play it quick and direct. He wants Kerry to become a side the puts up good scores, that scores points more regularly.

"You've got to keep scoring eighteen / twenty points. Bottom line. Then if you can tuck away two or three goals and score 3-8 or something like that, I don't mind, whatever it takes to win. The quality of the hurling comes out in the amount of scores you have. We'll be looking to try and score 2-18 or something like that," he says.

Having won the All Ireland U-21 title last year Meyler was expected to blood a lot of new talent this term. So far he's been living up to that expectation. Darragh O'Connell, Shane Nolan, James Flatherty and David Fitzelle to name but a few of the young guns battling it out for a place on the starting fifteen. He isn't, however, writing any of Kerry's old stagers off just yet.

"John Mike Dooley – he's a young 36, a young 36 in terms of mileage," he says. "You won't see that in Cork or Kilkenny with a 36 year old, there's much more mileage on the clock. Some of our fellas don't have much mileage up on the clock in terms of real real traning, real real hard training over a constant five or ten year period. What we're looking for is the freshness. Certainly Dooley can hack it, there's no doubt there. He's a fantastic goal-getter and all of that."

In this, his second coming, the pressure is on. He knows it. "I've put the pressure on myself. I'm in this for results. The first match is against Derry and that's it, that's what's important. I'm not into failure, I'm here for success and this is what it comes down to now. I've always been driven that way and the players know that.

"I want these guys to realise what the team of the 90s had. When I was here in the 90s we played Divison 1 hurling, albeit just for one year, and we played Munster Championship. I want these guys and particularly the younger guys to realise that they can play hurling with the best of them, but they have to realise that. They have to come to the table wanting that, self motivated," he says.

Meyler expects then, as does the Kingdom. ABBEYDORNEY last Thursday night. Temperatures dropping. Ice forming on windscreens. Floodlights cranking up. Cars pulling into the carpark. Hurlers alighting knowing there's a tough couple of hours in prospect. Laps. Drills. Hooking. Blocking. Chasing. Glamorous it ain't.

It's a scene replicated up and down the country. Footballers and hurlers. Rugby players and soccer players. The hard graft. The hard yards. This is when the work gets done. It mightn't look much, it mightn't be pleasant, but this is where dreams are made.

It's also the last place John Meyler expected to find himself. He'd been here before. He played with and managed his native Wexford, he played with and acted as a selector in his adopted Cork, he'd even done it with the Kingdom in the 90s. What then was he doing in Abbeydorney?

"Sure what else would I be doing," he says with a grin.

He wasn't meant to be here. He never planned on being here. When Joe Walsh called him looking for advice about who the next Kerry manager should be he gladly obliged. Bit by bit he built up a picture of the type of manager that the Kerry Hurling Officer should be looking to recruit. Bit by bit that picture that began to form in Walsh's mind was that of Meyler. He had all the attributes that Meyler suggested he should be on the look out for.

He'd been there and done that at the highest level and crucially had a knowledge of Kerry hurling stretching back well over a decade. Having overseen the Kerry U-21s All Ireland victory last autumn this was clearly the man to take Kerry into the future.

"Joe said to me look you'll do it then and that was that," Meyler says.

Now that he's back he couldn't be happier. Sitting, shooting the breeze, in the Abbeydorney clubhouse his passion for hurling and for the Kingdom is undeniable.

"I said it tonight coming down in the car that I just feel happy here. Contented here. I've spent eighteen years in Kerry, I've spent less in Kilmoyley. I'm more content here than I am anywhere else. There's a peacefulness about it, I enjoy it. I suppose it's different. You're respected more, there's more thanks, there's more thought of you, more gratitude compared to other jobs I've had," he says.

One of the first items on his agenda was to call on Pat Flanagan. The pilgrimage to IT Tralee to meet with the Waterford native has become something of a ritual for managers of Kerry teams ever since Jack O'Connor called upon his services during his first stint (and, indeed, his second) as Kerry boss.

If Meyler was looking for the input of a Waterford man with a sports science background to help bring his new charges to another level then he lucked out. No Flanagan wasn't going to get directly involved, but he knew a fellow deise man who could.

"Pat strongly reccomended Joe O'Connor's training and told me he was very good. I didn't know Joe I hadn't met him, but he brings a professionalism to it. Training methods and all of that have moved on enormously over the last few years. I would consider myself of the old school really. The way we trained in the 80s and 90s compared to the way players train now, there's a world of difference.

"Joe will bring cutting edge training to the Kerry hurlers. They have a fierce repsect for him and they're giving him a great response. I bring the hurling, I bring the organsiation and the management to it and the knowledge of teams and things like that and Joe brings the technical fitness. I think you need that kind of a set up nowadays," Meyler says.

It may be an obvious thing to say, but Kerry is overwhelmingly an football county. The inclination of hurling folk might be to ignore that, to focus solely on the small ball tradition in the Kingdom and plough a lone furrow. Not John Meyler. He saw Kerry football, the success, the tradition as a boon. A great untapped source of knowhow to be utilised.

Even before he took the job

he was suggesting as much to Joe Walsh, once he took the job it was something he was determined to pursue. Having selected Kerry hurling legend John Hennessy as his first selector he decided upon a different course for his second. He brought in Seanie O'Shea. Dr Crokes stalwart, All Ireland club winning footballer, brother of All Ireland winning manager Pat.

O'Shea has hurling pedigree, he hurled under Meyler in the 90s with Kerry, but it was his football background as much as anything Meyler hoped to tap. "Seanie had success with Dr Crokes from a football point of view and while he didn't know anybody he sees what's wrong even though he doesn't know the players, but he's getting to know the players better now," Meyler continues.

"I think that the football fraternity can help the hurling in a real manner by the experience that a lot of these guys who've managed Minor and U-21 teams and what they can lend to it. I was saying to Joe at the time that you need to get somebody, the likes of John Kennedy, somebody like that who has won All Irelands and knows what it takes and to try and transfer the organisation over to hurling and to be as professional as you can."

For a man who describes himself as old school his hurling philosophy is traditional. He wants players who can hurl, he wants players with pace, and he wants them to play it quick and direct. He wants Kerry to become a side the puts up good scores, that scores points more regularly.

"You've got to keep scoring eighteen / twenty points. Bottom line. Then if you can tuck away two or three goals and score 3-8 or something like that, I don't mind, whatever it takes to win. The quality of the hurling comes out in the amount of scores you have. We'll be looking to try and score 2-18 or something like that," he says.

Having won the All Ireland U-21 title last year Meyler was expected to blood a lot of new talent this term. So far he's been living up to that expectation. Darragh O'Connell, Shane Nolan, James Flatherty and David Fitzelle to name but a few of the young guns battling it out for a place on the starting fifteen. He isn't, however, writing any of Kerry's old stagers off just yet.

"John Mike Dooley – he's a young 36, a young 36 in terms of mileage," he says. "You won't see that in Cork or Kilkenny with a 36 year old, there's much more mileage on the clock. Some of our fellas don't have much mileage up on the clock in terms of real real traning, real real hard training over a constant five or ten year period. What we're looking for is the freshness. Certainly Dooley can hack it, there's no doubt there. He's a fantastic goal-getter and all of that."

In this, his second coming, the pressure is on. He knows it. "I've put the pressure on myself. I'm in this for results. The first match is against Derry and that's it, that's what's important. I'm not into failure, I'm here for success and this is what it comes down to now. I've always been driven that way and the players know that.

"I want these guys to realise what the team of the 90s had. When I was here in the 90s we played Divison 1 hurling, albeit just for one year, and we played Munster Championship. I want these guys and particularly the younger guys to realise that they can play hurling with the best of them, but they have to realise that. They have to come to the table wanting that, self motivated," he says.

Meyler expects then, as does the Kingdom.