Tuesday morning and Conor McHugh is fresh off the physio’s table. Although is fresh really the right word? The weekends are bleeding into each other for him now like colours in a toddler’s painting. Football, hurling. Hurling, football. His club Na Fianna are in the Dublin finals of both and McHugh is the only starter on both teams.

Na Fianna are in the throes of a run that has included, among others, three consecutive one-point wins in football and an extra-time victory in hurling over Cuala. He’s a scoring forward in football and a shutdown full-back in hurling. This will be his seventh weekend in a row in action.

Fresh? How would you be fresh?

“It’s mad,” he says. “When I was younger, my big thing was, ‘I want to be sharp for the match.’ But now it’s, ‘I want to be actually on the pitch for the match and get through 60 minutes.’ That’s literally all I plan for now.

“I used to do loads of kicking during the week. We were in both finals in 2022 and I’d say I probably used to kick 100 balls in the week before every football game. Couldn’t do enough. But now I’d say I’ll probably kick 20 balls all week and that will be that. It’s just making sure the body is good and going from there.

“You have to change your mindset, just because of the build-up of everything. It’s hectic but it’s a good complaint to have, I suppose.”

[ Na Fianna put in marathon effort and live to see another hurling county finalOpens in new window ]

Good complaints are the ha