Derek McGrath not getting carried away
After a 2014 season when he was pilloried in his county on the treble — relegation, two defeats in three championship games — as well as for showing the door to some old favourites, he has reason to be suspicious about his new-found popularity.
“That was very difficult for me because I was always sceptical of fans. I was in the stands one day when Dan (Shanahan) was taken off and the fella beside me stood up and applauded so I would have been naturally sceptical, a bit paranoid, about how harsh it is for people (players and management) who have family in the stand. We’ve just embraced the fans and tried to get them on board. They’re turning for us and victories help.
“Even personally, my own son is nine years of age and he left the Kilkenny (league) game last year after 45 minutes when we were 17 or 18 points down. Such was the level of, not abuse, but insensitivity. He hasn’t been at a match this year so if Fionn can stay away for the rest of the year, it’d be ideal! I talked to him on the phone and he’s delighted.”
A Dr Croke Cup wasn’t a consideration when McGrath was watching his Waterford players vomit after physical sessions on winter nights. A good league campaign was a goal. What it turned out to be was a great one.
“I’d be lying if I said I envisaged being here. I think what we tried to do was ride out the storm, ride out all the criticism that was there after the changes were made to the panel, keep our heads down and try to change as a management in terms of sensitivity.
“The way we’ve dealt with system-talk… we just felt we needed to change things, tweak things, to be successful based on the group of players we have. If you were in the 2004 Munster final, you had a forward line of Seamus Prendergast, John Mullane, Eoin Kelly, Paul Flynn, Dan Shanahan. I think Waterford will be at a stage to play more open hurling in a year or two — it’s not as if it’s not a plan; we feel we have a plan in place.
“We were building confidence by being relatively, I won’t say defensive, hard-working. We, or someone else, will tweak it in years to come. There will be a forward line capable of flamboyance in Waterford in a few years when the likes of Patrick Curran, Shane Bennett and those are the leaders of the team.”
McGrath has been so enthused by the lack of a flat day for Waterford so far this year. He noticed the players were giddy before the semi-final against Tipperary. That might have contributed to their early two-goal leakage but yesterday was all about business.
The opinions of Waterford have changed considerably, but he hopes their view of themselves won’t alter.
“I’m not going to be a hypocrite and say we’re ready to win a Munster Championship. There are huge improvements to be made. I’ll reference the first point I made, which was when will that flat day be? How we react to that will tell and that’s looking ahead. I think it’s a classic case of the Clare-Cork scenario from two years ago when Cork were waiting for Clare two years ago in Limerick; that’s what we face in five weeks time.”
McGrath may not have been glad of the club break last year but this season he is happier to let his players adjust their attentions.
“They need to go back to the clubs because I think to sustain this level of work-rate and level of professionalism — I don’t like the word professional — this level of approach, psychologically, mentally, emotionally, is probably impossible so I’m really, really glad they’ll have the two-week break to go back to the clubs and we’ll obviously hook up in other ways tactically but I think it’s very, very welcome.”
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