Wooly on the dos and don’ts of mouthing on a GAA pitch

"It was based on them being shite, or not being a good player, or being old."

There's a few mouthpieces on every GAA team. They need to be riled up, they need to get cross when they're playing, and to do this, they mouth, they mouth and they mouth. And they don't care who they're mouthing at. It could be the referee, the linesman, it could even be their teammates, but more-often-than-not, their opponents will bear the brunt of it. They say to let your actions do the talking on the pitch, but for some lads' actions to talk, they need to do a bit of you know... talking as well. https://twitter.com/TheGAAHour/status/943787423548497920 Colm Parkinson admits that he was a rampant trash-talker in his early days on the inter-county scene, when he played as a wing back with Laois.

"I enjoyed it. I just liked when someone would give it to you, and you give it back to them, and you might get a score and put them back in their place, then they're giving it to you," he said on Thursday's GAA Hour Show.

Some lads live for this type of an atmosphere. It gets them going. The Laois man went on to recall an instance with Kildare legend Willie McCreery when that racing mouth got him into big trouble. Laois were taking on Kildare in the 1998 Leinster semi-final, and when McCreery spurned a glaring opportunity at goal, Wooly was the first man in his ear.

"He was coming towards the end of his career. He was well in his thirties. I was a young whippersnapper, it was only my second ever game, and this will tell you what a mouthpiece I was. You might think I'm a mouthpiece now, you should have seen me on the football fields when I was 18, 19 or 20. "I was an absolute torment, but Willie got his last laugh on me this time," added Wooly.

Indeed he did, with the racehorse trainer retelling the classic tale when The GAA Hour went to Newbridge earlier in the year. "I was going straight through, and you were kind of half running after me... I went to kick it, I hit it with my knee and it dribbled wide," he said. Parkinson didn't let him away with it.

"Some miss, Willie! Some miss,Willie! You're gone! You're gone! You're gone," he shouted at the Kildare man.

It didn't end there of course, as McCreery continues.

"Ten minutes later, who gets the curly finger?" says McCreery, gesturing at Parkinson. "I go over, 'Seeya Wooly'."

Karma's a bitch. Wooly never lived that one down, but as he got older and moved up to the forwards, he learned to curb his confrontational tendencies on the pitch.

"That'll tell you how stupid I was back then. I had a mare that day, it was only my second senior game, but Eddie McCormack took me to the cleaners," he said.

Conan Doherty wonders why any forward would bother mouthing at all.

"What were you doing? Why were you such a mouthpiece? You were a good forward, just get the ball and score

Wooly nodded that when he moved up the field, he learned there was no point in trash-talking.

"When I went into the forwards I never would have initiated the trash talking," he said.

All trash-talkers will agree, however, that the worst thing that can happen is when your own teammates get on your back for it. They should know that's what you're like and to let you at it.

"They're like 'Wooly, come on, shut up!' This helps me, this gets me cross, this helps me get into this game and it gives me a point to prove. They would know this, but you still have these do-gooders. I'm like 'lads you know what I'm like, you've played with me for 20 years and this helps me.

You deserve it when you're mouthing at the referee, though, as Conan Doherty pointed out.

"If I was a player, I'd be saying that, too, stop mouthing with the ref. Mouth all you want with them boys but leave the ref."

You can listen fascinating discussion on the arts of the mouthpiece, and much more from Thursday's special GAA Hour edition, the last of 2017. https://soundcloud.com/sportsjoe-gaa-hour/special-episode-the-best-of-2017-happy-christmas