Tony Browne: We could have buried Galway in the spring

The excitement in Waterford is unbelievable but people outside of the team bubble must respect that bubble. Give the lads their own space. If he’s having lunch, let him have his lunch in peace. You can get his autograph next month, writes Tony Browne.

ALTHOUGH I think Waterford’s superior bench may give us the edge on Sunday, a part of me is uneasy with the fact that the same day Derek McGrath learned just how much strength in depth he had, he inadvertently gave birth to a monster.

Would Galway be marching into this final with the chests out so boldly if they’d lost that league quarter-final to Waterford back on the first Sunday of April? Would they have even made it this far?

Since the league final the narrative’s been that there’s been something different about Galway this year, but 10 minutes into the second half of that game up in Salthill it seemed like the same old Galway and the same old story. With nine changes to the team that had beaten Clare the previous week to secure Division 1A hurling for another year, Waterford were 10 points up on them, cruising.

I watched that game closely and for the first 45 minutes, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Galway so bad. Their first touch, everything, was off. Yes, they looked big and looked strong but they seemed very unsure of themselves, like a team feeling the pressure.

Remember, 12 months earlier they had been relegated in front of their own, losing a play-off to Cork, coming off another All-Ireland final defeat and getting rid of Anthony Cunningham. A few rounds into this year’s league then they were ambushed by Wexford and Davy, again in Pearse Stadium, finishing any hope of promotion. Another home defeat and whatever credit they’d amounted with the Galway public during last year’s respectable championship campaign would have been entirely wiped out. A heavy beating would have been a disaster, especially to an experimental Waterford side, leaving even the players doubting the Micheal Donoghue project.

Instead what transpired over the following 25 minutes was the making of it. As Galway pulled back the lead, you could see them growing in themselves. The way they greeted each other at the final whistle, you’d think they’d won a big championship match, not a league quarter-final. It was as if they knew some kind of light or fire had been sparked within them.

By the league final, they were a different animal. You could tell it in their facial expressions, body language, everything. It was hard to believe only three weeks earlier that same animal had been slumped over, almost waiting for someone to put it out of its agony. I don’t think Waterford realised what they gave life to when they left their foot off Galway’s neck.

Of course, Waterford got something out of that day too. Derek McGrath was able to give players their head and they all responded. Tommy Ryan caused fierce trouble inside, showing how well he could link up alongside Maurice who also benefitted from getting a rare start. Kieran Bennett’s only game time this year, ahead of being parachuted in for his championship debut last month in the All-Ireland semi-final, was that league quarter-final. Other fringe panellists would have sustained their commitment over the summer by getting a taste of the action that day.

Heading up to Salthill Derek would have known he had a team. Leaving Salthill he knew he had a panel. And in big games this summer, particularly in Thurles against Kilkenny, he’s trusted that strength in depth to make the difference.

But, in hindsight, that discovery came at a cost. By not going for the jugular, by not going for another league, by probably wanting to avoid an early battle against Tipperary and keeping his powder dry for a likely assault on them later in the summer, Derek now finds Galway are the enemy at the gates.

‘WE WON’T PLAY BY THEIR RULES. WE’LL INVENT OUR OWN.’

Still, it’s going to take everything for Galway to breach this Waterford fortress. Over the last three seasons, Derek has built the best defensive system in hurling. It means that in Sunday’s All-Ireland final, Waterford will be dictating the terms of engagement.

That’s the fact of the matter. The only way you can dictate to this system is to push up on the sweeper and I don’t think Galway will try that; not this late in the season, not in an All-Ireland final. So Waterford will be playing and dictating this game on their terms.

Which is quite a statement to make and quite a position for Waterford to be in on the eve of an All-Ireland final.

For so long other counties, particularly the traditional powers, were able to dictate the terms they wanted to play against Waterford. You go back to even when we were at our peak in the noughties. Cork had their possession, running game. Then that unbelievable Kilkenny team came along and basically played with four men across the middle: Derek Lyng and Cha Fitzpatrick as their centre-field pairing, Eoin Larkin dropping back onto the 65 and whoever else on the opposite wing retreating as well, cutting out the channels that you could play the ball into the likes of Eoin Kelly or Mullane. Now the shoe’s on the other foot. Waterford are the ones dictating terms to the likes of Kilkenny and Cork.

Derek McGrath deserves fierce credit instead of fierce stick for that. He put serious thinking into coming up with this system.

His first year over the team was a tough one. They took an extremely bad beating from Clare in the league; at half-time they were behind by 23 points. The following game Kilkenny hammered them as well. Derek kept the team back in Nowlan Park for an hour or two and that’s when he decided something had to seriously change. It wasn’t as if the De La Salle sides he coached at colleges and club level played this system. But this team needed protecting from further heavy defeats and Derek needed to win himself some more time as a manager to build a team and a system, so that winter he made the big call to go with this system, cull some of the older players and bring in more younger lads.

That took some balls. And some vision. Because all the time it was with a view to eventually winning an All Ireland. Over the years Derek would have gone to Croke Park as a supporter to see us play in All-Ireland semi-finals with our exciting, off-the- cuff brand of hurling only to traipse out of the place, a bit like Liam Neeson at the start of Michael Collins: “The game’s over, Harry. Lost again.”

But in his disappointment there would have been a determination. That there would be another time and that he’d be there. And what would happen that next time? As Collins said to Boland: “We won’t play by their rules. We’ll invent our own.”

OZZIE AND BRICK

It’s more than just a defensive system though. If you look at the scores Waterford have put up this year, it’s a rapid quick counter-attacking system, very much designed to create space at the other end of the field for scores. Derek has used the term “structured flair” in recent weeks and it’s a good one. If people think Austin Gleeson has been stifled in it, they only need to look at who was Player of the Year as well as Young Player of the Year in 2016.

About the only time he’s been constrained was in the Munster semi-final against Cork this year when they played him at corner forward which completely threw him. They tried to go more traditional that day but they were uncomfortable with it because they were so used to playing to the system. You can see why they’ve brought him out to centre-forward. Players like himself and Joe Canning, you want them in a central role where they’re allowed to get on the ball as much as they can and then let them off.

I was so engrossed in my own career that I saw very little of Austin playing underage with the club. But when I saw him with the minors that won the All Ireland in 2013, I was taken aback by his pure raw talent. I was fortunate enough then to play with him for two years. He’s a very unassuming guy but at the same time, he’s his own man. The best example of that was his goal the last day against Cork. It’s like something only a Maradona or Messi or Best would do. The normal thing to do — the right thing to do if you were anyone other than Austin Gleeson — was to slip it off to Brick Walsh. Not Ozzie. I’m not sure if it’s just pure raw talent or because he comes from a soccer background — his sister Jessica has played at international level for Ireland — but he’ll try and pull off things no other hurler would even dare to do.

If you look at all the great players in all sports, they’ve practised ridiculously hard. Ronaldo. Federer. In hurling you’ll hear about Christy Ring trying to drill a ball from distance up the exhaust pipe of his oil truck, Henry Shefflin too, working out on his lunch break. Austin wouldn’t exactly be like that. Don’t get me wrong, he’ll train as hard as anyone, but it’s not like you’ll see him half an hour before or after training, working on his game. But, Jesus, imagine if you did? It’s frightening to think there’s even more in him.

Michael “Brick” Walsh is the opposite. I’d say it might even frustrate him to see Austin in training and how easy he makes it all look. I remember when Justin McCarthy first brought Brick in for a trial game in 2003. I happened to be the one marking him and his hurling was so raw. But it’s a credit to Justin’s coaching and Brick’s dedication that within 18 months he was a key player on the team that won that great Munster final in 2004.

Brick would remind you of a Kilkenny player. They win an All Ireland today and it’s parked tomorrow, onto the next task.

That’s the family and environment he was reared in. They’re farmers and if a thousand bales of hay have to be brought in, it’s as simple as that and there’s no big song and dance when it’s done. You just go out and do the very same tomorrow.

It’s the same after a defeat. Back when we lost a championship game, you’d nearly go into a fit of depression for four weeks.

What’s striking about the top sportspeople now, including this Waterford team, is how they can move on from that setback and even see it as an opportunity. I know that after the Munster semi- final loss to Cork, Derek brought the team back to the Horse and Jockey and apparently they thrashed out that game there and then for a few hours. By Tuesday night they’d moved on. Hardly a word about the Cork game. They were straight back into the process.

I know that phrase has become something of a cliché but there’s a reason why the top players and teams use it so much: because it keeps you grounded and focused. That’s one of the hard lessons I’d tell them from our experience in 2008: stick to your routine and stick to the process.

THE HARSH LESSONS OF 2008

A good deal of our preparation for 2008 was actually quite good.

I remember reading somewhere President Mary McAleese said she could tell even on the red carpet that we looked very nervous. Well, if you don’t have butterflies playing in front of 80,000 going into the biggest game of our lives, there’d have been something seriously wrong with us; had we won, she’d have been saying by God, you could see the determination on the faces of those Waterford lads. But there were things that were off.

We’d spent 10 years trying to get to an All Ireland final. We’d lost semi-finals in 1998, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, all games we could or should have won but didn’t. Suddenly

we found ourselves in 2008 beating Tipperary and in my opinion we played our final that day. You hear about all the people who have climbed Everest but died on the way down before they ever got back to base camp.

It was almost like that with us. It was as if we felt we had climbed Everest by reaching an All-Ireland final but then on the descent turned around to one another and realised, “Hey, we’ve only half the job done here”. Nobody was going to see the pictures from the summit until and unless the final part of the journey was complete. By then it was nearly too late, and as a result, no one got to see us in the history books, no one got to see any picture of us planting the flag. We perished on the descent because we didn’t stick to a process or routine.

ANOTHER lesson from 2008 is in the lead up to the game control the supporters in a humble manner. I was a guest panel last week at a Club Deise event and it was a terrific night which would have helped raise money for the team’s preparations.

The excitement and goodwill was unbelievable but people on the outside of the team bubble must respect that bubble. Give the lads their own space. If a guy’s having lunch, let him have his lunch in peace; you can get his autograph next month. In 2008 a final was all so new to us but we need to actually win it before we can all go crazy. The other thing I’d say to the lads is not only is it fine to be nervous, but it’s fine to say to other lads in the setup that you’re nervous. Just as some people are afraid to say they’re depressed, in some team environments people are afraid to say that they’re nervous. That’s something I’d do differently after 2008. I’d now say, “Listen, it’s okay to tell me you’re nervous. I’m with you.

Don’t worry. I’ll get you through the next 10 minutes. I’ve been here 15 years. You’re only here a year or two. It’s perfectly normal to be nervous before a big game like this. It’s excitement really more than nerves.” But if you don’t have that kind of safe environment, you can go into yourself and come out of the process.

I think Waterford will be okay on that score. Galway possibly have the greater experience of the big day but Waterford have beaten them at minor and U21 level in All Irelands so that almost balances that out.

I’D BE a huge admirer of Tadhg de Burca but I’d go so far as to say that Conor Gleeson is going to be more of a loss to Waterford’s defensive structure than even Tadhg would be. His name wouldn’t have been one you’d have heard much on the commentary of any game this summer up to the last five minutes of the semi-final against Cork but just look at whose names he’s pretty much quietened this summer. Alan Cadogan was held to a point in Thurles. He’s seen Richie Hogan off the field, Conor McDonald the same and had Conor Lehane tied up the last day.

Derek would have eyed Joe Canning up for similar treatment.

There’s another player, even less heralded now, that could be missed, just how much so, we won’t know until around 5pm on September 3rd. In that league quarter-final back in April, Tom Devine took Daithí Burke for two goals before announcing the following week that he was going off travelling for the year.

Burke has got the better of some of the best players in the game — Seamus Callinan, TJ Reid — but he couldn’t handle the sheer power of Devine. People have been rightly talking about Galway’s physicality but Devine could match them on that and more.

As I said, ultimately I think Waterford will shade this because of the finishers that we have: Maurice, Tommy Ryan, Brian O’Halloran. But Devine would have made that cavalry almost unstoppable.

Here’s hoping that another what-if from the day up in Salthill doesn’t come back to haunt us.