Ryan Wylie well remembers playing football in the backyard with his two old brothers, Drew and Brent. He may still have a few marks from those days.
"Jesus, I used to be battered," the Monaghan and Ballybay defender said at the launch of the 2019 Allianz Football League.
"When you have a couple of older brothers, you can’t be seen crying to mom or dad so you just have to take it. Ah, there’s a few injuries out the backyard but nothing serious, it was good craic. They’re the days you want to get back actually!"
Along the street where the Wylies grew up lived several members of their local club, Ballybay Pearse Brothers.
A "massive" influence on the football careers of the three brothers - Ryan and Drew play for Monaghan, while Brent has played for Ballybay - was Kieran Finlay, father of recent Monaghan star Paul Finlay.
Kieran, who won a county championship with Ballybay in 1987 and inspired Monaghan to their first Ulster title in 41 years in 1979, passed away in 2012.
The Finlays were next door, there’s a good few of the Ballybay team along our row but we had good craic growing up.
Drew started playing in our house and it was Kieran Finlay that got him out playing and Kieran would have had a massive influence on all of us. Even now, Paul is.
Unfortunately, Kieran passed away a couple of years ago but Kieran would have you outside, kicking off your left foot and you probably weren’t even fit to kick it off your right! Just always trying to improve you. Just very thankful to be honest.
Just 24, Wylie has developed into one of the game's toughest man-markers. Last summer, he conceded only five points from play in the championship.
"I'd stick to my usual routine. I don't really do anything mad," Wylie says about facing some of Gaelic football's biggest names.
"They're the same as us. They're just another person - they have two arms, two legs like I do. Both of us just go out and the forward's job is to score and my job is to stop him scoring. One of us is going to lose out one way or another.
"It's a good old battle though if you're marking somebody and their prime objective is to get a score. You get a few tasty battles during the year - that's the exciting thing about it.
"It's great to be challenging yourself against the best in any walk of life. You always want to keep improving and the only way to improve is to be playing the best."
That ability to face the challenge all began in the backyard and on the street with Kieran Finlay.
Photo by Philip Fitzpatrick/Sportsfile
