Time to get the Déise smiling again
He wasn’t tattooed like Dan and he wasn’t a scorer like Flynn, but for many Waterford supporters he was the heartbeat of the team.
On the field Ken McGrath won All Star awards at half-back, midfield and half-forward, which in itself sounds reasonable as a coaching qualification. He didn’t expect the call to patrol the sideline at intercounty level to come quite as quickly as it did, though.
“A strange week,” is his description of the end of March, when Waterford manager Michael Ryan called him in as a selector with Seanie Cullinane.
“The call came out of the blue but I said I’d go in and help out.
“I saw the early league games and saw the way things were going. Working out in Carriganore a couple of days a week I’d have seen a couple of the sessions as well, and when I was asked to help out, with the sports shop going, I had a lot of time.
“I felt I could help out, I had nothing to lose, and I felt I could improve things.
“We got two good results and stayed up, but since then we’ve had three hurling championship and three football championship games since then, which tied some lads up for six weeks.”
That reference to the shop is to his sports business, which closed down late last year as Waterford reels from the recession.
McGrath decried the price of admission to Munster championship games last week because of the financial pressures in the southeast.
“I’m not rehashing the tickets thing but one of the hardest-hit places in the country is Waterford, there’s been a lot of closures and people are finding it very hard. They’ve been fantastic to us over the years, despite the heartbreaking defeats we’ve had. The hurling is one thing that people have at the moment, and it’d be great to have a run and just keep things going. If Mullane got a goal it might stir the emotions and maybe get things going.
“I hope they’ll come out and support us. They always have, but things are tough, there’s no doubt about that.
“There’s a recession in Dublin but there’s a depression down here. Waterford is on its knees. You can see it.
“There are lads emigrating from every club. My wife’s two brothers are in Australia, my own brother is heading out there again. The priority a few years ago was hurling, now it’s about keeping a house over your head.”
There are headaches on the hurling front as well: McGrath says preparations haven’t been ideal.
“When we were together it was going well, but when we weren’t... I never saw it as disjointed. We’ve only had certain fellas for one week in six.
“That’s one issue, and we weren’t happy, but when we came in (as selectors) that structure was in place.
“We’d never have played off three rounds of the county championship at that stage of the season before, but we did.
“I felt it showed a lack of respect to Michael (Ryan) in doing that, in fixing those games.
“And after the Clare game there’s a round of championship games five days later. That’s slightly unfair on lads.”
McGrath still stars for Mount Sion against some of the players he trains during the week: “The lads would know I’d be honest with them. As for playing against them, sure it’s no harm to see them up close, but when I was playing for Waterford sure we’d kill each other in club games but pull together for the county.”
Pulling together means settling on a style of play.
When Davy Fitzgerald managed the Déise they changed to a more defensive system; has a change been discussed? “It has and it hasn’t. In the last few years people would have been talking about maybe a negative style of play, but in fairness Davy had to try something. The beating we got in the All-Ireland against Kilkenny probably set us back and we probably had to play more defensively. People weren’t happy with it but he could say we won a Munster title and got to three All-Ireland semi-finals (with that style).
“My style playing was a bit more free-flowing, but sometimes that doesn’t work either. And it all depends on the players you have. For years you had Dan and Flynner and so on in the forwards, lads who could do anything, and hopefully over the course of the summer we’ll develop into the team we hope to be.”
Clare will have something to say about that. McGrath pays them due tribute.
“I saw them play a few games, they have confidence and Davy has a bit of a blank canvas in that a lot of them haven’t had a lot of senior success, so whatever he tells them to do they’ll probably do. When he came to us you had a lot of lads who’d played for years and would have had different ideas on how to play. Davy’s passionate and he’ll get them working for each other, and he’s got them putting up good scores. They’re going well.”
And the fact that last summer Fitzgerald was in the Waterford dressing-room.
“We’ve had it before,” says McGrath. “In 2009 we had Justin as Limerick manager against us, and we’d had longer with him than we had with Davy. Going back further we played Cork when Gerald (McCarthy) was over them, and he managed us as well. It’s a small enough world in the GAA. I don’t think it’s a big deal, it’s just something that happens.”
Tomorrow at 4pm. That’s the big deal.
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