Time for fans to give Mullane his due

WHAT must John Mullane do to win the love of hurling followers? He has the respect, there’s no question about that, and John is unquestionably one of the finest corner-forwards of his generation.

Still only 28, since bursting onto the senior inter-county scene as a coltish 20-year-old in 2001, the De La Salle star has been held scoreless in just three of his 37 championship matches, and in that period has come in with some fairly hefty totals, his 3-1 in a losing cause in the Munster final against Cork in 2003 probably the highlight.

Respect, then, universal across the hurling world, but what of the love?

The likes of Henry Shefflin, Joe Deane, Tipperary’s Eoin Kelly, even his own team-mate Tony Browne – all those in their own way have managed to win the affection of the public. Not John. A pity, that, because among those who know him best – his own – John Mullane is seen as one of the nicest guys you could come across.

Perhaps it was the early days, the first impression. With the blond hair, the burning pace, the way he has of not just potting the ball over the bar but of drilling it, John Mullane stood apart from the start.

He wasn’t just flamboyant, he was flamboyance personified, everything he did finished with an exclamation mark. The pumped fist, the scream, the clasping of the crest on the jersey – all so Sky Sports, all so Premier League soccer, all so alien, and Mullane (along with several Waterford team-mates) came in for criticism from all sides.

From where comes this stuffiness, this conservatism? Was Christy Ring not flamboyant, a showman in his own day? Mick Mackey, likewise? In this, the first decade of the 21st century, is John Mullane not simply doing what those guys did back in the 30s, 40s and 50s? Isn’t it time we all came to appreciate the true value of John Mullane?

As we head into the first of the All-Ireland semi-finals this Sunday, Waterford against Kilkenny, Mullane is in the form of his life.

From Waterford’s first championship game this year, the drawn Munster semi-final against Limerick, he has been well-nigh unmarkable.

Four points he scored in that game, won the free that earned Waterford the second chance; six points he notched in a rampant replay display. Against Tipperary then in the Munster final, he grabbed 1-5 got in another lost cause, followed up the weekend before last with the winning point in a glorious comeback win over Galway in the All-Ireland quarter-final.

That point told you everything you need to know about Mullane, about his character, his class, his courage under pressure, his enduring hurling skill.

In the second minute of injury-time, having been held scoreless from play, three wides debited against the five pointed frees won, it would have been entirely understandable if all Mullane wanted to do was hide, take himself away from the action.

Instead, Declan Prendergast burst out of defence having won a breaking ball well inside his own half, Mullane was very quickly on his shoulder, around the halfway mark, screaming for the ball, screaming for the responsibility of taking the shot. Took the pass, and from fully 65m, hit the shot – even in the circumstances, it was never in doubt. “Relief,” he says, was the overriding emotion, “Relief because it was the first score I happened to get on the day, relief that it happened to be the winner too.”

It was relief hard earned. The character mentioned above first came to the fore in 2004, and like his 3-1 against Cork a year earlier, like his 1-5 against Tipp this year, it came in a Munster final, at a time of adversity.

Cork were again the opponents, and in the first half, Cork on the rampage, Mullane was sent off for an off-the-ball incident, and an incident that afterwards, on video review, seemed innocuous enough.

Waterford came back to win that game, and – in line with what was happening in so many other instances then and since – Mullane came under pressure to appeal, try to get either the card or the subsequent suspension overturned to allow him play in the All-Ireland semi-final.

He refused, took his punishment on the chin, moved on. Perhaps it’s time everyone else did the same.

Since then, John Mullane has been a model hurler, a model sportsman. In this year’s Munster final, the game long lost, he was the one who never gave up, who kept plugging away, kept inspiring all those around him to do likewise.

That effort fell short against Tipperary, but against Galway, same situation, same inspiration, there was a different outcome.

“Once you get into the habit of keeping going until the end, you don’t know when it will come good for you. If we’d done the opposite (in the Munster final), threw in the towel against Tipperary, then you get into that bad habit, and we might have done it against Galway too. So I reckon the finish we had against Tipperary stood to us at the end of the Galway game.”

Character, class, commitment, courage, to go with superb skill and deadly finishing Mullane has it all. It will all be called on, of course, this Sunday, and if ever an individual and a team had motivation going into a big game, it’s John Mullane and Waterford. 3-30 to 1-13, the humiliation inflicted on the Déise by the Cats in last year’s All-Ireland final will stand forever.

“We didn’t play to our potential,” John explains.

“But we were never left get out of the traps. You have to credit Kilkenny – they just played an A1 game that day. Once they got off to the start they did, the momentum was with them, and it’s very hard to peg back a team when they have so much class on display.

“It’s a bit like Kerry (against Dublin on Monday), there was class coming from all angles. You aren’t just being hit by one sucker punch, you’re being hit by 15 of them.”

This Sunday offers a chance at redemption; Waterford – and Mullane – may take it, they may not, and the odds are certainly against them.

Either way, it’s time we gave this particular devil his due.