Queally grateful for six week break in build up to semi

PETER Queally is thankful for the fact that Waterford had a decent break after their Munster hurling final win.

And, the fact it extended to six weeks cannot be proffered as an excuse if the team doesn’t advance against Clare in the All-Ireland championship. At least that’s how he feels going into tomorrow’s semi-final against Clare in Croke Park.

A Youghal based garda, he dismisses the notion that the players found it difficult to focus on the semi-final, especially when they didn’t know their opponents until a fortnight ago. Quite simply, once they resumed training on the Friday evening after the win over Tipperary, everything was geared towards the All-Ireland semi-final.

Apart from the fact that he works outside the county (he is a native of Kilmacthomas), it wasn’t a problem to refocus on Croke Park even though he was still meeting people he hadn’t encountered since the Munster final. “They are still congratulating me. But, that’s part and parcel of winning.”

The biggest advantage he feels Clare enjoy over them is the fact of having already played in Croke Park. They merely had just a light training session there. “I think it will take a bit of getting used to. But, hopefully we will adjust to it fairly quickly.

“With regard to Waterford being inactive for six weeks, I wouldn’t be using that as an excuse if Clare beat us on Sunday.

“To be honest, if we had to play three weeks after the Tipperary game the hype around the county would have been a bit too much.

“At least now it has died down a bit. And, after Clare’s good win, people are starting to talk a lot more about them now. That has stood to us.”

While he agrees it was never certain how they would do in their All-Ireland quarter-final with Galway, he is not surprised to see them progress this far. “It was always going to be hard to predict a winner because there was never going to be anything between them. And so it proved on the day when there was only a point in it.

“I suppose Clare’s heart on the day won through. They never gave up. They have built up a spirit that is probably there since the early 90s when Ger Loughnane took over and even before that when Len Gaynor was there.

“When we met them in the League in Ennis, I didn’t think that we would end up meeting them in an All-Ireland semi-final. But, I did feel Clare would go a long way. I was very impressed with them that day. I thought they were very strong and very physical,” he says.

For him personally, the heartbreak of defeat in the 1998 semi-final with Kilkenny provides a powerful motivation. And, it will be no different for the other players who were involved then.

“To talk to any of the players who played in 98 in the semi-final, it was a really bitter pill to swallow. It took players a long time to get over it. I couldn’t even bring myself to watch the All-Ireland final that year.”

He is reminded about the old cliche about losing a final before you win one.

“Hopefully, the same is true for a semi-final.”