Griffin chooses blood ties

GROWING up in Rosslare, he would have been known as a son of Liam Griffin, a man consumed by his passion for hurling and forever associated with the inspirational role he played in Wexford’s 1996 All-Ireland triumph.

Now, Niall Griffin is a personality in his own right, a member of the Irish equestrian team for the upcoming Olympic Games in Greece, a winner in one of the most demanding of all sports.

And like any dutiful parents, Liam will be in Athens with his wife Marry to support him and the team - which of course means that he will miss Wexford’s Guinness All-Ireland hurling semi-final against Cork in Croke Park next Sunday. It’s almost heresy! “Blood being thicker than water, I suppose, we would want to be there,” he says, displaying justifiable pride in the success Niall has made of his career. He still remembers the day he told him that he wouldn’t be able to play for the club under-21 hurlers, because of his ambition to pursue a career as a horseman.

Griffin agrees Niall’s selection for the Olympics supersedes anything he himself achieved in sport, commenting: “I’m absolutely delighted for him because to be honest, my business took me out of (playing) hurling at a very young age. And, to this very day I regret it deeply.

I encouraged him to follow his dream and have a go at it. It’s a tough game he’s in, one of the most dangerous sports in the world, which means we always worry about him. But, that’s what he wanted to do and we fully support him.”

Liam is a member of the Hurling Development Committee whose proposals to reorganise the hurling championship (starting next year) gained widespread approval at annual Congress. One obvious benefit should be to make it a more even playing field for the provincial champions.

“It’s clear that the six weeks lay-off is very difficult to cope with. I remember that, in my time, we weren’t nearly as sharp in the All-Ireland semi-final as we were in the Leinster final. I hope that under the HDC proposals we will eliminate that gap,” he said. ” I don’t think Waterford, to be fair to them, coped well with it. They did look a bit flat last Sunday and only really started to hurl in the last 20 minutes. The momentum was lost. I don’t know how they managed their time in between, it’s a difficult thing to do. Going to play Antrim in a practice match, with the greatest respect to Antrim and everybody else, didn’t seem to do much for them to keep the players on their toes!”

It poses the same question about Wexford, going into the game as Leinster champions for the first time in seven years. “It will be very interesting to see how they perform. Last year they had beaten Offaly in the qualifier series, then Waterford and then came on to play Cork battle-hardened. Cork came in having won a provincial championship and you could argue that they looked a bit stale the first day. Wexford gave them a good game, but when that game was over, everybody [knew] Cork would win because the match would do them a lot of good. And that proved to be the case.”

Wexford’s form in the Leinster final would concern him for the reason that it fell below the standard of their semi-final win over Kilkenny - when, he said, they played ‘brilliant hurling,’ showed a tremendous spirit and had a very good game-plan which was administered very well. They didn’t repeat that form in the first half of the Leinster final. In fact, only for Damien Fitzhenry, Offaly would have been out of sight. Offaly are in transition - not a good team - so it wouldn’t have been good for Wexford if they lost. But, in the second half they played much better - but not nearly as impressive as they had been against Kilkenny.”

He fears for the team if they don’t play as well - saying he’s convinced it will take that kind of performance to beat Cork. They must “use their heads and their hearts particularly”, and re-discover that form. What encourages him is a belief that Wexford are “slightly better” than they were last year and the feel that Cork are not as good as they were. At least not yet! “Cork are improving, the defence is better than last year and midfield is marginally improved. But their forwards haven’t clicked yet. Having said that they did a very good job against Antrim. We can talk forever about Setanta (O hAilpin), but he is a major loss - just like John Mullane was a major loss to Waterford last Sunday. Brian Corcoran is still finding his feet, but the good news for Cork is that he got two goals against Antrim and the forwards got a lot of good scores. Last year, Wexford struggled to beat Antrim. Maybe Cork are just coming at the right time, but the jury is out their forwards, until after this game at least!”

Griffin still hopes to watch Sunday’s game on television, that’s if he can locate some venue where it will be available. “Myself and Niall spent all day contacting Irish embassies in Greece to see where we can get to see the match. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to see it. Of course if Wexford win, we’ll get to see them in the final. But that’s a bit ‘ask,’ isn’t it!”