Derek McGrath Interview: ‘We are trying to change a culture in Waterford’
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I found it ironic that a team which is supposedly stymieing or reducing or curbing the individuality, shall we say, according to the land of punditry has had the Hurler and Young Hurler of the Year (Austin Gleeson, 2016) and Young Hurler of the Year (Tadhg de Burca, 2015) in the last two seasons. Your peers’ judgement nearly some of the pundits’ opinions of us. I’m surprised nobody picked up on that. Austin is renowned for being an individually gifted player yet was able to win those awards playing to a supposedly robotic, systematic game-plan. That was very rewarding for us as management.
The aftermath of Austin winning the awards and the debate that surrounded it... if Austin was here he’d tell you he’d swap them both to have what Seamie Callanan, Pádraic Maher or any of the Tipp fellas have.
It heartened me about six or seven weeks later to read an interview with Austin where he said he felt they wouldn’t be fully physically or mentally developed until they were 25 or 26. I think that’s the big danger in Waterford – not a lack of realism but not realising the difference between being pragmatic and over-the-top in terms of expectation.
We only have to look at the last time we won the U21 All-Ireland in 1992. A year later and we were beaten in the first round by Kerry. The big difference is that most of those players have been in with us already. I’ve met 50 people since September who said, ‘You have some job picking that team next year with so many of the U21s’. And I’m saying, ‘Not really because a lot of them are there already’.
I’m amazed that’s lost on some people. It’s not a debate that annoys me; it’s just the facts are different. As regards minding them, I keep harping on about development and process but that’s part of what Austin and the rest of the guys have to go through. With experience, they’re growing mentally and physically the work that Fergal O’Brien (head of athletic development) is doing with them is immense. If you’re to look into the future, you could see a game or a situation this year when maybe Austin isn’t going well or one of the other younger lads.
The easy debate is they’re developing into prima donnas but the harder debate is they’re still growing physically and mentally and might be up against a better opponent on the day. We want to follow the Kilkenny culture where none of these awards have gone to their heads or driven their egos.
We’re trying to change a culture in Waterford and we’re trying to win a few matches along the way. The machines that are Kilkenny and Tipp in hurling and Kerry and Tyrone in football are all strongly linked to supporters’ clubs. Club Déise have been hugely supportive but it’s in its infancy. I travelled to Garvaghy, Tyrone’s centre of excellence, before Christmas and it was pointed out to me that it wasn’t there when they won All-Irelands but it was a product of the momentum their success created. It’s a difficult scenario in that Waterford, no different to any other county who hasn’t won an All-Ireland in a while, is longing for success but the belief in what we’re trying to do only gathers pace when they see progress. It’s difficult to operate outside the realms of a budget and try compete with other counties on and off the field. To compete on the field is difficult enough. What you need is a visionary approach and a growth mindset within your board.
You need for them to be able to say ‘there are going to be setbacks along the way but there will be investment no matter what the results are and that continued investment will reap the rewards’. That’s the danger in counties like Waterford, that if we have a major setback to ensure spending isn’t cut in a reactionary move. When a county is longing for a breakthrough, that is the danger. I was in at a review with the board in November and presented a 250-page document from everything and every game. It was a very open and transparent meeting.
They give us all the support they can and what they believe is necessary, but of course there is a difference between what they deem necessary and what management believe necessary. The relationship is sound but there are differences of opinions, like in any relationship. Club Déise have been particularly good and we went to Fota Island for a training camp last year. We were over in Liverpool last weekend (bonding break) and we raised the funds for it ourselves. There is a balance there between treating a group in an elite manner but taking ownership and raising money yourself and feeling that you’ve contributed to the weekend away yourself and that’s important too. There are close friends and family who constantly provide support, advice and guidance. If there are any issues regarding competing with teams off the field, it is countered by the absolute honesty and effort of the players and the support and vision of family and friends.
On my referencing from school, was written. My mother said to me, ‘That means you’re paranoid’. So that’s probably where the paranoia comes from. I’m always asking questions like ‘what do you mean by that’ and being defensive. I’m not sure if previous managers were treated differently because I don’t know enough about it. I do know when Davy (Fitzgerald) was involved he asked me a couple of times to get involved and assured people the set-up would be good. I’m not keen on getting into the debate of being taken for granted because one thing that always balances any feeling close to that is that I’ve been that way all my life. I don’t try to go on a different tangent but it’s the relationship with the players that counts most.
Your relationship with the players and theirs with you, we’ve kind of cocooned ourselves. That’s needed when you’re in a county that’s trying to create a new culture. Dan (Shanahan) told me he was at a funeral last year and a well-known political figure attacked him over a player being on the team and somebody else not being on it. Dan tried to tell him, ‘I’m at a funeral here’. We don’t offer our opinions too much on politics or matters of the day. Obviously, you link yourself to charitable things to boost their profiles but it’s open season in sports. I don’t feel taken for granted but I do in my own paranoia. We’re just interested in getting better every time we go to the field.
I’ll tell you how fickle it is: I was being perceived as villainous for dropping well-known names off the panel two years ago to all of a sudden being told that the players are there! What I was perceived as doing was madness. It’s not copycat in any way but Dublin are bringing in a lot of young fellas. Cork are doing it, Limerick are doing it. It’s just the age profile of the teams. Peter Queally and myself were the only people who expressed any interest in the Waterford job, whereas now if the position was vacated, a lot of people would be putting their hands up. That doesn’t bother me but there are people who put out signposts that they’ll wait for players to turn 22 or 23 and close to fully developed and it will be a nice place to go into then.
That’s the fickle side of things but against that I’ve noticed that for every one or two people I meet who mention system talk, I’ve met a lot more who are in tune with what we are trying to do and where we want to go with it. We haven’t tried to copy the Kilkenny or Tipp model but make sure that the lads work hard and stay grounded. If they make a mistake in an interview, that’s fine.
They have to make them along the way. We don’t want to turn them into clones. Mistakes are part of their growing-up process. I hate to think that one of the younger players in two or three years would become robotic in what they say to the media. It’s difficult because the expectancy on them is huge.
In 2015, we had a record number of All-Star nominations with 11 and if you really do your homework the collective are reflective of us working as one. When I see Jamie (Barron) or Austin winning an All-Star I automatically think of Jake Dillon and Philip Mahony and Barry Coughlan, the understated guys. In any county, you’re going to have people who maybe don’t live in the same world we live in. I would find it incredible that people are talking about Kilkenny’s demise. We won a minor four years ago and an U21 last year. Kilkenny won a minor three years ago. They have won the last three All-Ireland colleges with St Kieran’s. When we (De La Salle) won it in ’07 and ’08 we were lauded but the dynamic is different because we didn’t win a Harty (Cup) since 1956. The Waterford News and Star had a photo of the U21s at their medal presentation last week and had ‘2017?’ as if to say... to me it’s a bit far-fetched but I can understand it based on the county’s longing.
You have to practice it. All your drills and hurling training is simulated in a manner that should reflect the game and that could be from four weeks out from it. Four weeks out from the opening league game against Kilkenny next month, we will be putting into action what we’re hoping to do. You have to constantly reiterate your core principles of simplicity. Always working as a group. The collective comes first. Honesty. Integrity. Humility. No bad body language. They mightn’t be part of a game-plan in terms of specifics but those are simple messages illustrated all over the field. You constantly talk about instinctive hurling, allowing players to come outside any game-plan when you know the individual involved is able to do that.
When I hear about us taking off the shackles or freeing the guys, I also know that players like structure. They like to be told ‘you’re picking up him at the start of the game’ because what happens? When it’s not there players will lean on it and they’ll come to you and ask in advance of a game who’s picking up who. Only when that’s gone will people realise, ‘hey, they had our plans in order’. We would say 85% of what we do is based on instinct, heart and determination and the remainder comes from knowing what’s happening when we go out on the field and when we have to change set-ups but not being over-tactical so that it hamstrings us.
Even looking at the Cork model last year when the criticism early on was that Cork don’t play that way and it’s not in their DNA yet there was a definite attempt to do it against Tipp. I watched the All-Ireland final recently and the commentary team were talking about the gap between Kilkenny’s full and half-back lines and they were saying they couldn’t believe the 70-yards gap. But I was thinking if they filled it they would have been criticised for being defensive. It was ironic to hear the contradictory stance from match to match. In terms of game-plans, we have a group that believe in them. I remember when John McIntyre was manager of Galway and saying after winning a game that they got rid of the cones at training, played a match and it was brilliant. We do that some nights. We’re not overly-structured to the point that the players are saying, ‘Oh, here’s another email here’.
It’s a mixture of fun and imparting things that come naturally. There’s a myth inter-county managers are all-conquering and dictatorial in their approach regarding lifestyle choices and issues. In my three years thus far, I have made one submission to request a game to be changed and this was in advance of the Munster final last year. In retrospect, given the nature of our performance, I probably regret that decision. Most, if not all, managers believe in the social, pastoral and educational development of the player. You want to set an example. In terms of a manager’s responsibilities, it’s in my opinion that an absolute prerequisite of inter-county management is to set a good example before and after games in terms of your behaviour and the culture you are trying to create.
We probably played four different ways in the draw against Kilkenny last year. It was gas because afterwards it was as if we had picked them up from Mass in all their parishes and told them to just go out and play.
I accept that. The obvious thing was that we pushed up on their puck-outs until the very end of the game when it wasn’t even by instruction that we changed. We, as management, take the blame. The dynamic of the subs may have altered things. That’s when Paul Murphy got the ball to Conor Fogarty for the equalising point. It (the analysis) was funny. And I know what’s coming down the tracks – ‘why don’t you play like the U21s and why don’t you play like you did in the two Kilkenny matches?’
But if I go back to our first championship game against Clare we were fairly conventional in that game for a long time. Clare were unconventional which made us look that way. We collapsed against Tipp and I take full responsibility for that. Against Wexford, they put Paudie Foley back as an extra defender. They had done it against Cork and that freed up one for us. We were trying to be pro-active. We received widespread criticism for how we played. I met a former Waterford hurler two days before the drawn Kilkenny game and he said, ‘Jesus, I was very disappointed with the way you played against Wexford.’ I said, ‘When did we beat Wexford by 10 points in championship before?’ He said he didn’t know and I told him because it was never. I got prickly for the first time having a debate in public.
Following on from that, the U21s played absolute champagne hurling in the Munster final, which almost created a chasm between them and us. I was actually watching it and thinking ‘they’re playing the way we’re trying to play’ but the disparity between the levels are huge. It’s Premier League and Vauxhall Conference, I’ll be straight up with you! Worlds apart. What happened against Kilkenny was we implemented what we were trying to do in other games in a better way. We played eight minutes one way, 12 minutes another and so on.
Ironically, the most structured game of our season came against Kilkenny when we were perceived to be shackle-free. We saw a completely different Waterford on The Sunday Game that night. As a current manager, you’re trying to find the balance between not revealing too much about what you’re doing or cribbing and saying, ‘You haven’t a clue’.
I still think there is a gap between Kilkenny, Tipp and us. Tipp’s forward sextet is the best in the country and a sextet involving our lads in four or five years can be just as good. Tipp are capable of doing that to any team given the potency of their forwards. Kilkenny can offer the same threat.
My son is playing U11 with De La Salle and the other fella is starting next year. The talk at juvenile matches... the classic two hands on the hurley is wheeled out consistently. Can you tell me how many roll lifts/jab lifts were done with one hand in the All-Ireland final? When do we change what we say to kids? At what age should we teach them to pick with one hand? An U9 corner forward is told to get out in front so he gets out in front but goes too far and the ball goes over his head. The same mentor then tells him to ‘stay in’. I’m slow to enter into the debate that the game is evolving; it is. The core principles about who you’re representing and having an instinctive nature and promoting the skills are all essential but how we are imparting education about the game at a young level is just as important.
Children need to know that change will come in how hurling is played. The GAA is slow in that regard. Like anything, traditions will be handed down in a house and that tradition of negative talk about how we play becomes engrained in people’s minds and nearly becomes the truth.. You asked me before if I saw myself as a pariah. We see ourselves as a very hard-working, resilient, honest team that wants to get better.
Because of our relative progress and the U21s last year, there has been a focus on Waterford and it probably clouds the fact there are just as many talented players in other counties. Tipperary were in the U21 Munster final for a huge amount of the time.
Tipp won the minor last year. Not a word about it. Again, because of the difference in cultures. Tipp is an established All-Ireland winning county, whereas we’re longing for success. Waterford needs to balance that with a sense of reality.
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