Realistic McGrath thankful for the memories

THE end borrowed something from the beginning. Ken McGrath was in his shop this week when the phone rang. On the line — one Raymie Ryan, the Tipp back who marked McGrath on his intercounty debut 15 years ago.

“I can’t believe you only retired now,” said Ryan.

It’s been that kind of week for the Waterford man. He and his teammates got their 2010 Munster championship medals last Sunday evening, but McGrath, substituted against Cork earlier in the day, was preoccupied on the road home from Dungarvan.

He spoke to his wife Dawn about calling it a day at intercounty level.

“I was embarrassed — if you’re used to playing to a good standard you don’t want to let yourself down.

“I go to my mother’s for lunch on Mondays so I chatted to my father about it. ‘Look, you know yourself,’ he said.”

McGrath jr. slept on it Monday and woke with no need to revisit the decision. He told Davy Fitzgerald he was gone.

“Fellas might be trying to come up with something about me and Davy, but I was happy enough to start midfield on Sunday, I thought it would suit me there.

“We mightn’t be the best of friends, but I fully respect what Davy’s done for Waterford and the way he treated me this year as well.

“I wasn’t going to be happy not playing last year. Fellas can read what they want into it but it wouldn’t have mattered if my own father was the manager, I wouldn’t have been happy.

“I deserved to be taken off Sunday. I knew that. Davy has to try to build a new team and the work he puts in is unbelievable. I have no grudge against him or anyone.”

McGrath might be less forgiving about his own knees. There’s not much cartilage left there, and a lung infection last year inflamed the joints further.

“Everyone saw that I lost a lot of weight, though I put that back on, but all of that knocked the goodness out of it for me with training.

“Then in the summer, with the hard ground, you’ve to wear special soles and so on... it wasn’t easy, but I’ll be able to play on with the club (Mount Sion) at least.

“Last year I thought I’d have to pack it all in, but now I’m looking forward to playing a club game and maybe having a pint afterwards.

“I missed out on that for years — with the county you’d have to keep your food diary filled with all the stuff you are eating and so on.

“I’m not complaining about that, either.

“I travelled the world with Waterford and we had great craic.”

The breakthrough for McGrath and the Déise was 1998. He was a raw 20-year-old but demanded a lot of himself.

“Thinking back, I was probably too hard on myself. In the 1998 Munster final I probably broke even with Seanie McMahon, but I was like a dog because of that, though he was definitely one of the best I ever marked.

“It took me a while to get over that — if I wasn’t brilliant in the first-half I mightn’t turn up in the second half. I had to realise ‘you can’t play well in every game’.

“That was the year, though — we beat Tipp in Cork which meant we’d play into late July, August and we had a summer of training. We had good craic too — myself, Dan (Shanahan), Dave Bennett — it was a massive summer around town because we hadn’t been in big games, or live games on TV and so on.

“A lot of the young lads on the Waterford senior panel now were kids then, three or four years old. There was a great buzz around the city, even though we didn’t win anything. “The semi-final against Kilkenny... it was a game we should have won. I had two or three wides in the second-half myself.”

There were other years. Other chances. McGrath points to two big obstacles.

“We didn’t win the big one, but we only have ourselves to blame for that. And Cork and Kilkenny were good teams.

“In 2004 we got 18 points against Kilkenny but they still beat us. In 2006 Cork won by a point.

“In 2007 Limerick had their homework done and caught us on the hop a bit, but we were probably at our best that year. They deserved the win, but we gave away too many goals.

“But that’s still one of my favourite games, even though we lost. I loved the pressure of that day, and I was devastated we lost, but it was a great game.”

There were great victories, too. For many, the 2004 Munster final remains a modern hurling classic.

“I remember thinking, ‘this is the fastest game I was ever in’, after a few minutes of the game,” says McGrath.

“Later on after I made a run I thought, ‘this has to slow down at some stage’. But it didn’t.”

The game ended, famously, with a McGrath catch.

“I’d just hit the ball too long, beyond our forwards, and Cork cleared it, but you’d hope for that situation — one last ball you could stop — and it landed in the hand. In the last few days a lot of people have mentioned it, and Thurles was hopping that day. Brilliant.”

The outpouring of emotion in the last week in Waterford touched McGrath.

“For the last couple of years you’d be thinking, ‘what am I at’, but the messages and calls... they’d make you feel good.

The last week everyone’s been great.

“You’d think, ‘yeah, it was a good career’.”