McCarthy answers the call for leadership

FIRST brought into the panel by Liam Griffin, Rory McCarthy now finds he is one of only three survivors of the team which won the 1996 All-Ireland final under the inspired captaincy of Martin Storey.

By his own admission, he wouldn’t normally be one to take the lead in dressing room discussions, but, nowadays he is conscious of the responsibility he shoulders.

In last year’s All-Ireland semi-final game against Cork, McCarthy (operating at midfield) scored a dramatic injury-time goal which earned Wexford a replay. They won their semi-final against Kilkenny a few weeks ago in similar fashion. Still, he says it’s a rare enough occurrence for them. “We’re used to getting beaten by last minute goals. We looked dead and buried and Mick (Jacob) popped up and scored,” he recalled.

“However, while people talk about how well we are hurling in the Leinster championship this year, at the end of the day we’re not hurling well until we have won a Leinster championship. We’ve achieved nothing yet!”

In advance of the semi-final, Wexford had been largely written off. However, McCarthy had no difficulty with that, explaining: “We give the press every reason to do so, because we seem to put up a good performance every year and follow it with a bad one. It’s consistency we are looking for and until we get that we won’t be rated a good team.”

That’s the single most important message that the Wexford players and management want to convey this week. And, it has special significance for the reason that they are playing Offaly. McCarthy reminds you that they have “always struggled” to beat the Midlanders.

His concern is based on the belief that supporters don’t see it that way, that they are inclined to view the game in the way he himself did back in 1988. “The majority of them feel that it’s only a matter of going up and collecting the Bob O’Keeffe Cup. But, we have been drilling it into our players for the last three weeks that this is not going to be any easy ride.”

Under Griffin’s management, Rory was converted into a forward, but through his career at under-age level, he had usually played in the half-back line. It’s where he is now operating. “Through retirements and injuries there was a bit of a hole there this year (at left-half). The natural person to come in would have been Keith Rossiter, but he picked up an injury. I’m just happy to fill that role as long as I am needed.”

Only once before did he play as a wing-back and that was in the 1999/2000 season. That was one of the years that Offaly won and was the end of his foray back to the defence.

This year, he feels the team has benefited from the training of former Olympics coach Jim Kilty. “He emphasises the importance of speed in hurling. In the past we would have done a lot of long-distance running. Now it’s all fast speed work.”