Outside of my own good self, there isn’t a man in the whole of Ballybore able to reverse an articulated lorry with Nancy’s deftness, and, rather than monopolise the moment, I let her do the honours Wednesday evening. "I still don’t get it, Noel," she complained, elbow out the window while casting an astute eye over the tight corner, "sure it’s six months yet to the county final, and six more again if the county team manage to win a championship match at all."

Once more, I talked her though my rationale. "It’s visualisation," I told her, "the power of seeing your house built before you lay your first block, so to speak. As Zig Ziglar told me himself, there’s no point being a wandering generality, you must be a meaningful specific. You can’t hit a target blindfolded, and you certainly can’t hit one you didn’t have in the first place."

The look of bemusement didn’t leave her face, alas, and I generously suggested that "maybe I’m not explaining it well." I continued, helpfully. "If Ballybore are to win this year’s county championship," I said, "there has to be something physical that plants the idea in their mind that, yes, we, the men of Ballybore, are going to bring the Father Francis Franks Cup back to the town."

You could almost hear the penny drop. "Oh, now I get it," she said, "Jessica talks about the same thing at Weight Watchers. Look in the mirror and see yourself three stone lighter, she tells the women. It’s a load of delusional nonsense, if you ask me, but it could be just the thing for Ballybore. A few of them could do with losing the three stone too."

We debated the matter for 40 minutes while she inched the trailer into position. She cut it fine in the hurry, and had to work her way across the triple seat and out the passenger door before slinging off the mirror to the ground, landing with a wince of pain on the ankle she broke in the ’67 semi-final.*

"That," I said, modestly, when she had the flags and bunting erected across the curtainside, "is the secret weapon that will propel Ballybore to glory. Every time the boys drive around town, they’ll see themselves up there with the Frank Franks, women barking and dogs crying. This will work its way into their sub-conscious and have a powerful effect on their performances."

There would be some, of course, who would seek to make fun of my little ruse. But, as Walter P McMorrow once wrote in The County News, "the Carnivore of Ol’ Ballybore has deployed the awesome potential of the mind since the Dalai Lama was but a chap." As it happened, the Dalai Lama of the day was just nine years old, but everyone could see the gist of the point Walter P was making.

That night at training, I could sense the strategy beginning to work. "Noel," remarked JP Darmody, "if you moved that trailer a thou to the left, I wouldn’t have to leave my seat in Molly’s at all. I’d have the homecoming visualised so much, we’d be county champions by August, and they’d have to bring Paddy’s Day forward to Halloween."

There followed a riotous laugh among the group, of course, but my keen eye recognised their reaction for what it was: a defence mechanism, constructed by the collective sub-conscious to buttress them through the pain of a leaving their comfort zones. This is a common response when you introduce a little piece of psychology to a team of wandering generalities.

Even as some held their stomachs from the pain of unrelenting laughter, while others carried JP Darmody shoulder high onto the field while singing ‘are we human, or are we dancer’, I knew my novel approach was having the desired effect.

Their mirth soon evaporated as we got down to business, and after my trademark motivational talk, Nancy took the warm-up. Four didn’t survive. The conditioned handpassing game was the most ferocious I’d witnessed in years. They took lumps out of each other.

We kept them at it for the best part of three hours, seeing as they were enjoying it so much. The First Aid man was busy but, as he said himself, "there’s no team in the county doing this kind of thing." Truly, we are stealing a march.

I knew significant progress had been made when JP Darmody muttered, between dry retches against the perimeter fence, that "if we keep at this, visualisation is the only way I’ll see the inside of Molly’s for the year." Nancy and I laughed heartily at that, and the smile was still on our face as we jogged the four miles home, deliberately taking the long way so that a magical night wouldn’t end too soon.

* No, as it happens, she didn’t play on. We were well ahead at the time and thought it better not to take risks. She didn’t talk to me for three days.

Noel doesn’t mind mind games. Email him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ; visit www.knowledgeablenoel.com; or cut him off at the pass on Facebook (Knowledgeable Noel.)

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