Ryan's dream getting nearer to reality

NOW into his eighth year as Waterford County Board chairman, Paddy Joe Ryan possesses the same wish as the day he assumed office.

Addressing his first county convention he expressed the hope that “some time during my term of office I will have the honour and privilege of seeing a Waterford senior hurling captain lifting the McCarthy Cup”.

This year, however, as if acting on a sixth sense, Ryan told delegates: “I believe that we could be nearer in 2002 to bringing that dream to reality than we have ever been over the last 40 years.”

A great admirer, however, of the Clare squad, and firmly believing that they would see off Galway’s quarter-final challenge, Ryan acknowledges it won’t be easy on Sunday.

Ryan needs no reminding of the events of 1998 when Waterford and Clare last met in a championship arena. The drawn and replayed Munster final games were tense and torrid affairs, and in their immediate aftermath relations between the two counties soured.

In all the hype and build-up to Sunday’s game, Ryan has moved to quell any suggestions that the game will be a revenge mission from a Deise perspective.

“Some people in the media,’’ he said, “may be trying to create that scenario for whatever reason, but as far as we are concerned it’s a semi-final no different to the one we played against Kilkenny four years ago.

“Despite what happened four years ago, relations between ourselves and Clare have remained what they always have been, first class.’’

Even with most of the pundits going for a Galway victory against the Banner, Ryan has always believed that Clare would be their semi-final opponents.

“They are unrecognisable from the team that lost to Tipp in the first round of the Munster championship, and are without doubt the most improved team still in contention for the All-Ireland,’’ he said.

However, he said the Munster final victory had lifted spirits in the county. “There is a fierce hunger for more, and if we can repeat the level of performance against Tipp then we should be all right on Sunday.

“Everyone is playing for everyone else, and the respect the players have for Justin McCarthy and his fellow selectors Colm Bonnar and Seamie Hannon has to be seen to be fully appreciated,’’ he said.

All of which, in the chairman’s view, bodes well for next Sunday.

“We are as well prepared as any team ever could be, we have an injury-free camp, and the self-belief of everyone is something else.’’

A highly successful businessman as managing director of Comeragh Oil, a company he set up ten years ago and which now employees 11 people at outlets in Dungarvan, Cappoquin, and Lismore, the county chairman says he would consider swapping all of his own championship medals for a Waterford All-Ireland final win this year.

Paddy Joe Ryan knows just how massive a fillip victory would give to the entire county next Sunday.

“Just like the Munster final win, it would set the scene for four fabulous weeks in the run-up to the September 8 final.

“It won’t be easy, that’s for sure,” he said, “but in my bones I feel Sunday will be our day.”