Armagh football legend and former Crossmaglen manager Oisin McConville currently finds himself in extremely unfamiliar territory.
Since stepping aside from his club managerial role, McConville has been named an advisor to the Laois hurlers, where he works on motivation with Eamonn Kelly's men on a collective and individual basis, usually on a Tuesday night.
Despite playing alongside a number of the great footballers - and indeed being one himself - however, McConville's experience with Laois has opened his eyes to the other side of an age-old debate, as to whether hurlers are truly made of sterner stuff than their footballing counterparts.
Speaking on Second Captains on Thursday, McConville surprised Eoin McDevitt and Ciarán Murphy with a rather frank assessment of his findings, maintaining that - having seen Laois in action - hurlers could in fact be considered 'a different breed' to practitioners of his own sport:
I have to say it's been refreshing. When people say off-the-cuff stuff, or generalise stuff like, 'Hurlers are a different breed'...Jesus, they're not lying.
Completely. I'll put it like this, if I can simplify it for you. I watched [Laois] on a Sunday. I'm thinking, 'Jees, there's no way these guys can train again for at least a week.'
They turn up on the Tuesday night - guys who've been carried off, guys who've been injured - they turn out on the Tuesday night, and they're just hurling like nothing has happened!
That's different to the footballers I ended up managing, and probably even some that I played with...and probably meself if I'm going to be truthful about it!
I know that's probably a fairly simple thing, but for me [hurlers] just have a great attitude of getting on with it.
His assertion will no doubt rile many of the more sceptical football hard men, while hurlers the country over will be thinking saying, 'Told ya so'.
McConville went on to explain how, due to his recent introduction to hurling at a hands-on level, he finds it difficult to assess players' performance due to the fact that they all wear helmets.
His hurling takes will no doubt remain red-hot as he continues to broaden his horizons with the O'Moore county.
