The best of rivals
: “I SAW Waterford coming along in the ’50s, that was when they started gathering their momentum. The first All-Ireland I went to was the 1959 final, when they played Kilkenny. They were in their element then, came from behind, Cheasty scored a point to snatch a draw. My brother had a VW Beetle; I won’t say how many of us travelled in it, but you wouldn’t get away with it now, we’ll say that! After the match we went to the Metropole Ballroom, danced away all night and got home to Kilruane just in time to milk the cows the following morning. Ye came back then and won the replay, and that was ye’re crowning glory.”
: “WE had some fantastic hurlers. They were brilliant on the ground when they needed to be and wonderful off left and right. I know that what happened in Cork the day we beat Tipp in the semi-final in ’59 was a freak thing, 8-2 to no score at half-time, but it was a very good team. I remember that day so well; I got one shot to save in all the first half, stuck out my leg and it went out for a 70, which Tipp missed. A strange thing; Tom Cunningham (Waterford corner-back) and myself were walking through Cork just before the game and there was dead silence there, everyone had already gone out to the match. We met a few Tipp lads, Devanney, Nealon, Moloughney, and I couldn’t help noticing there was a kind of complacency there; they were kind of patronising us a bit and I wouldn’t blame them, Waterford were always being hammered by Tipp around that time. But I sensed after that meeting that we had a great chance. I never expected what happened, but you see Tipp did a very foolish thing. If I win a toss I never give the advantage back to the other fella. I’ll take the wind, throw the sun, moon, stars, throw everything at them for the first half, put all the pressure on them, and then I’ll roll up the sleeves for the second half and take whatever they throw back at us. But Tipp gave us the wind and, with all the complacency, they weren’t able to cope with the mad frenetic start we made.
: “BUT that was ye’re style, ye played sweeping hurling, ye’re movement was fantastic, when the team were moving well ye were unbeatable. I wasn’t there that day but I remember hearing the score at half-time and thinking, well that’s wrong anyway! But the kind of hurling ye played. People talk about Cork today, that was Waterford back then. John Barron was corner-back, wasn’t he? Austin Flynn full-back, gave you great cover and Martin Óg Morrissey at centre-back was outstanding.”
: “I GIVE great credit to Austin to this day. I want everyone to know — he made me. He was a wonderful friend to me, always tried to take the blame for my mistakes in the goal; ‘Listen,’ he’d say to me, ‘Sure ‘twas my mistake first, it had to pass me to get to you!’ ”
: “WELL I’ll tell you, anything that passed Austin earned its way! He was tough, not tall but a big strong man, very broad.”
NP: “I’D hate anyone to think he was dirty, though, because he wasn’t. There was one day he hit John Bennett of Cork, accidentally and what did he do but bend down to see how he was and forgot altogether about the ball!”
: “JUST like John Doyle would do on ye’re team, Len!”
: “OH he would, yeah. John was very sympathetic that way, ‘Are you alright?’, checking to see how much damage was done! Ye got us that day alright, Ned, but the ‘63 Munster final, do you remember that one? Tipp did everything bar score, they couldn’t get the ball past you. 11 points to eight it finished.”
: “WHAT thrilled me that day was we had played Tipp in the League final earlier in the year, in Croke Park.! Mackey McKenna scored two goals, put them on my right side where I couldn’t get over quick enough. In the last few minutes in that Munster final he broke through, took a shot, but I took off even before he had it hit; it thumped off my chest, and there was a black mark there until the following Friday! Jaynie I was proud of it!”
: “THAT loss was a real shock. It probably cost Tipp the five-in-a-row because they had it over Kilkenny at the time.”
: “IT was a great Tipp team. The only way you could beat them was in the mental approach. They had to be wrong, complacent, you had to be right.”
: “THE first time I played with Tipp was the Oireachtas final of 1964, against Kilkenny in Croke Park with about 50,000 there. Kilkenny absolutely hammered us in the first half, going from side to side of the pitch, up and down, leading by about 11 points at one stage. But we got a goal just coming up to half-time. I was a real rookie, only on because Mick Byrne was sick, but the thing that stands out in my mind was the dressing-room at half-time. I thought there would be chaos, mayhem, hurleys broken off the table, fellas shouting and roaring but instead there was total calm, not a word was spoken. Finally one of the senior lads stood up, I think it was Theo English, ‘Come on lads, it’s time we got down to business, beat these lads.’ That was it, we won by four or five points. But that calmness stood out in my mind and I used it afterwards in my own management days.”
: “CORK had a good team that time as well. The thing about Cork was that they were very much hurlers, but they were very hard also, though I must say they probably had more ball-players, Noel Gallagher and people like that, than they had physical fellas. Ring had it every way. I was playing a League match against Cork in 1958 and Ring got a point early on, a beautiful one off the air. He didn’t get another puck and was going cracked. A ball eventually came in, he gave a little push to the fella he was on, the ball landed, the whistle blew for a free out, but he tapped the ball into the net. I picked up the ball, threw it out to him; ‘Here Christy, have another one!’ I said, cheekily. I can imagine him going back to Cork, ‘By Jesus I’ll give him another one when I meet him again boy!’ And sure enough, 1959, after we won the All-Ireland, we met them above in Cork in what was going to be an exhibition of how Waterford can hurl. They beat the living daylights out of us, and after about four goals, Ring ran into the back of the net, picked up the ball, ‘Here Ned, have another one!’ Wasn’t it lovely?
“Another day we had played Cork and beaten them, and were watching the second game, between Limerick and Tipp. Jimmy Doyle was just on the scene, took a free, and in his own sweet way, put it over the bar; Ring gave me a puck of his elbow in the ribs, ‘Did you see that?’; ‘See what?’ said I; ‘See the way he followed through? I must remember that the next time I’m taking a free.’ There was Ring, the maestro, laden with honours, taking a lesson from a young fella? Wasn’t that something?”
: “I NEVER played against him, but I played with him, in football. It was a charity match, organised by Jimmy Magee; years after Ring had retired, above in Newport in Tipperary. John Maloney was the referee, you had Michael Kiernan, John Doyle and Fr Michael Cleary. It was nothing serious. All these games were supposed to end in a draw, but we were three goals up coming towards the end. Maloney started giving penalties, Doyle was in the goal for us; first penalty, he never moved, probably couldn’t at that stage anyway! Goal, only two goals ahead. A few minutes later, another penalty, same thing, Doyle never moved, another goal, only one goal ahead. Third penalty, to level the match, Ring ran up the field, ‘Come out boy, come out, I’m going in there!’ And in he went, hopping from foot to foot, completely focused, dived, saved the penalty! He couldn’t bear to lose, not even a charity football match.”
: “OH that was Ring. But let me make a confession here. I hated playing in goal, would never have played there only I was asked, and I tended to do what I was asked. I was about 25 or 26 at the time, had always played in the forwards. I got onto the Waterford team when I was 27 or 28, but you know something, when I was 37 or 38, I was better! I had great experience, was particularly fit, had very good health always and I thank God for that, of course. But I hated playing in goal. People often asked me, what match did you most enjoy? I never enjoyed a match in my life until it was over, and we’d won. Part of a match yes, I can tell you straight away; Munster final 1959, the last eight or nine minutes when they were hitting them in from all angles, and if I could I’d say ‘Hit them in again, I’m going to stop them all!’ I felt that way. I got them from Ring, from Paddy Barry, it didn’t matter, got them all. That day was a wonderful day. The happiest day I ever had in goal was in 1962, the ninth of July, against Cork in Thurles in the Munster semi-final. I had been taken off in that field the previous year.!! I went away after that and trained harder than ever; ‘Never mind anyone else,’ I said, ‘You owe this to yourself! Get back on that team.’ Over the next year they tried five different fellas but they mustn’t have been any good, because I got a ring from the county secretary ten days before the Cork match, and listen to what he said to me, ‘Jaysus Ned, we’ve no-one!’ Translated into English, that meant I was the best of a bad lot! I didn’t mind, I was waiting for that call. That day, I’d have gone through heaven and hell to get the ball. That was the day that famous photo of me jumping through the air was taken. Low one, high ones, didn’t matter. Liam Dowling was put in to flatten me but that didn’t work either, I hit him a flake and gave him a look in the eye, ‘by Jaysus you’re not going to frighten me!’ And by the way, there was an awful canard around that Sean McLoughlin was dirty. He was no such thing!”
: “HE loved putting Ollie (Walsh, the great Kilkenny keeper) on his backside!”
: “AH I loved Ollie, he was so bubbly. He was one of the great characters. In our team we had Martin Óg Morrissey; Cassius Clay we called him, he thought he was Almighty God, ‘There but for the grace of God, goes God!’ we used to say. Martin was a great character, I loved him. Tom Cheasty was another, he had a happy and holy hatred of the great trinity, Cork, Tipperary and Kilkenny. He said to me there some time ago, ‘Jaysus there should be no backdoor for those three!’”
: “YOU’RE often asked about the golden moment in this game but every moment was golden. When you look back on it now from where we are, every moment was golden, even the moments when you lost, when you got injured. You were honoured to be picked by your county, by your club. I was at a schools match today, two schools from my own parish got to the finals of Cumman na mBunscoil, their own section. And it was special to see the level of skills from those two schools, only 11-a-side, up and down the field, the rising, soloing, striking and the flicks. Different skills have evolved as hurling has evolved. The overhead pull is still there, but not as much. Before, if the ball was coming overhead you just pulled — you might hit it, but you didn’t know where you were hitting it. Now they’re so well drilled, you must find your man, so the overhead pull is going. But so many of their skills are better than ours, their pickup skills especially are much faster and much neater.”
: “PERHAPS, but I would honestly think the skill standard is nothing as fine as it was in our day. It was much slower, there’s no question about that, but there was a greater level of skill, left and right, pulling along the ground and in the air, marvellous skills that you don’t see anymore. Noel Gallagher of Cork was a brilliant fellow for doubling in the air, he really had it timed to perfection. There’s nobody now who can do that.”
: “I THINK the current Waterford team has left an All-Ireland title behind them, what do you think? There was at least one year in the last seven or eight when they were the best team in Ireland, but not now.”
: “WITHOUT a doubt, yes. I think their major problem is discipline, and I’m not just talking about getting sent off, I’m talking about the kind of discipline that sees you getting to training in plenty of time, the discipline of doing what your coach wants you do, of doing it conscientiously, of wanting to do it with your best endeavour like I’m sure the Cork lads are doing. Then on the day of the match that discipline makes you a team man, not just a good hurler but a team man.
I was very impressed with Tipperary against Limerick and the way they coped with those two early goals. Did the heads hang? No sir, it was up with the sleeves and work, work, work.”
: “IT was the same in that great Tipp team. There was a celebration in Dundrum House lately for the team of 1958 to ‘65, a team that won five All-Irelands, and they showed snippets of matches. The biggest thing that came out of that, for me, was the way they competed for everything. It was thunder, in there on top of it, looking for the ball, hungry for the ball. A lot of players think, ‘I’m a good hurler, if I sit back here I’ll get the chances’; you won’t get them, not against a top-class team. That team competed for every ball with vigour, with everything we had. There are no shortcuts, you sit back and wait for your opponent to miss the ball, it’s not going to happen; you have to compete.”
: “WHO’S going to win on Sunday?”
: “I’D love to say Waterford, but I’m not confident enough to make that prediction. I don’t know what team we’ll have, where they’ll line out. James Murray from Tallow, he’s been centre back, right full back, left full back, he’s been full back; why not let a team settle? I’d play him in the half back line, a good hurler, but we don’t know where we are.”
: “I’M just hoping the confidence they’ve gained from the win over Limerick will bring them on. But that performance won’t be good enough tomorrow. Waterford have been consistently competitive for several years, have brilliant players; even with the injuries they have they’ll be good on Sunday, but I’m hoping Tipp’s confidence will pull them through.”
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