As the crow flies, it’s 368 kilometres from Croke Park to the UK Defence Academy in the Oxfordshire village of Watchfield.
There since August has been Cmdt Stephen Molumphy, his wife Niamh and three young children, and there in the front room of his military house he will be on Sunday, not just cheering on his county, but being part of the management team looking to bring glory to it.
A remote posting for sure, but in contact with the Waterford sideline so that he can impart key nuggets of advice.
“You wouldn’t be doing it constantly,” he says. “You’re not seeing what they’re seeing on the ground but you are picking up on things.”
The arrangement may sound far-fetched but thanks to the wonders of technology it’s been that way right through the Championship. In-game phone conversations, mindful of the few seconds delay between the actual action and the live TV feed. Zoom meetings a couple of times a week with Liam Cahill and the rest of the management team. Poring over the data and past games on Huddle. WhatsApp discussions every day.
All the while, Molumphy has been completing a 12-month Advanced Command and Staff course linked to an MA in King’s College, London. Every two years, the Irish Defence Forces send over an officer to partake in the course, which is designed for commandants - majors as they call them in the UK - and lieutenant colonels.
Before Covid struck, he thought the All-Ireland would be over and done before he left. But when the GAA rearranged the Championship for winter, he had to break it to Cahill that he wouldn’t be there.
His answer was not one Molumphy was expecting.
“When I left, we didn’t even know if the Championship was going to go ahead but then it kicked on a few weeks later. Liam was very much determined to keep the group together. He insisted on me staying involved.
‘What is it they say in the army?’ he goes. ‘We don’t leave any man behind.’
With one step left to All-Ireland glory, how thankful Molumphy is that Cahill didn’t.
“I heard the phrase ‘inclusive leadership’ from one lecturer the other day; that’s definitely Liam. He said, ‘No, you started the path with us, you remain on the path’.
“I’m also doing the second year of an MBA at the minute and that has taught me about information technology and social media. Huddle is online and we have access to that as well. It’s a fantastic tool. I can go through hurling matches here in the UK Defence Academy as I would be doing at home in Ballyduff, through the challenge matches, the various camera angles. Nothing beats being there but thank God we live in this age where we have those tools.
“Every day there is something to be doing. Liam has kept me a member of it and all that’s missing is being present physically. That’s a huge thing, of course. To not be there at training and see the lads putting the commitment in and encouraging them when they’re going hard at it. It is difficult being away from it because there are many times when I don’t have any input at all.
But in past years you wouldn’t have had a chance of doing this at all. Another country? You were just out of it.
Sons Jack (6), Fionn (4) and daughter Katie (2) are delighted with their new base. Traditional British service accommodation comprising four and five-bedroom houses with large gardens, there is plenty for them to do.
“The oldest two are in school and they love it. Half of the classes are children from Watchfield and some are from international families. They learn about the other countries and it’s fantastic for them. Jack’s best friends are from Japan and England.
“The other day, Fionn brought me out for a training session ahead of the final. He had his little whistle and little cones. We have our hurleys and helmets here and most here don’t have a clue about it. A Japanese family passed by as Fionn was giving me and Jack instructions to do a drill and the family just started clapping.”
Back on the pitch
The last proper hurling training 36-year-old Molumphy did was prior to the West Waterford intermediate final when Ballyduff Upper beat Clashmore/Kinsalebeg in dramatic circumstances.
Having switched from a Wexford to a Waterford selector at the end of last year, he had decided not to tog out in 2020 but then Covid changed everything.
“At the start of the year, I thought I wouldn’t play because how could you train guys and within a few months you could be marking them and then going back to the county set-up and wanting to be best friends? So I said I’d leave it go, but then Covid came and they put club first and sure I reasoned that it would all be over by the time we went back into the county set-up.
“So I went back and it was a great campaign. We got lucky in a few games and I think we were the first club to win a final on penalties after extra-time. We had the western cup that night in the village but I had to leave (for the UK) the next morning.
“It was difficult to go knowing we had a county final to play but I was over here jumping around watching it. It was still in the balance close to the end but thankfully we did it. The history alone, Ballyduff Upper playing Ballyduff Lower. A lot of my friends think a bridge separates us, that we’re arch enemies when we’re at different ends of the county.”
To those ends Cahill has gone this season, checking up on players when they might have least expected it.
“We were under radar at the start of the year but Liam has brought in the attitude, integrity and work ethic. He really nailed that down from day one. If you’re hurt, get up. Don’t mind the referee, just get up. Him constantly saying little things like that.
“He went to all the club games as any county manager would but he was even going to the challenge ones, junior and intermediate.
He’d know more about the geography of Waterford now than a lot of people from the county. He was asking me where all these pitches were and I found it difficult to tell him.
“If a player wasn’t playing well in a club match, he’d be getting on to that player. ‘Why aren’t you doing it for your club?’ he’d be asking, which is a nice touch. He’d say, ‘You should be performing and showing me why you should be in the county team’. That was there from day one, that honesty, and he has built it up from there. He’s built on what the managers previous to us have done. He hit the right notes.
“He’d tell everyone straight out where they stood in the panel. He’d be very approachable so if anyone was to come up to him and ask ‘why am I not getting in the team’ he would say, ‘Look, this is where I see you. Here, here. You’re ahead of this fella because of this, you’re behind this fella because of this.’ The player mightn’t be happy but at least he knew where he stood. It was a real good man-management style.
"Some guys didn’t like and they might leave the panel. Other guys stayed and worked hard enough and they’re playing or on the matchday panel.”
The cut-throat element to shaping the panel at the start of the year combined with the hurt after two consecutive championships without a win following that 2018 All-Ireland final appearance has proven to be a potent combination, Molumphy believes.
“The atmosphere at the start of the season was, I won’t say one of caution, but wariness. There were a lot of cuts in the panel at the start so nobody knew if they would be there in the dressing room the following week. Everybody had to justify themselves.
Everybody had to realise this was something different. There were guys who had been in a position for a long time but that changed.
“From being in dressing rooms before, it was something I picked up on straight away. The thing was laid out - ‘Lads, the chance is there for you. Take it or be gone.’ There was plenty of other guys Liam was looking at as well that didn’t make the panel but he has a couple of them lined up for next year. Lads were fed up.
"We have great hurlers but they wanted the prize and it’s not a Munster title but the ultimate one, this one.”
A player who came on in the back of the crest-kissing, crowd-cajoling era under Justin McCarthy, Molumphy gets more of a kick out of how measured the Waterford players were after beating Kilkenny.
“There’s a very mature attitude. No-one really has a medal in their pocket and that hunger is driving them. It’s a different era of players and a good few of them haven’t even reached their prime.
“When they beat Kilkenny in the semi-final, I was watching their faces. They were smiling but there was no-one jumping. I remember beating Tipperary in a semi-final in 2008 but this was a lot more sober. They know they’ve won nothing yet. The last two years has definitely sobered up a lot of them. They’ve been close before but their reaction told a lot.”
As did the way they refused to accept a third game in as many weekends would define their performance.
“After the Clare game, the word tiredness was banned,” Molumphy reveals. “There was no talk about it because Liam didn’t want the players getting it into their head. Every player knew what they had to do. They weren’t going to be any excuses.
“Belief is a big thing when you have fitness too and now they have an extra week’s rest in between and the engines are fully charged. He kind of set the tone in the dressing room after that game. No excuses is the perfect mantra.”
Cahill may have spoken of Limerick being ahead of Waterford’s in the strength and conditioning stakes following the Munster final but he was citing it as a mitigating factor, admitting his team didn’t play as well as he expected them to.
2007 in reverse
Facing them again, Molumphy hints at a reversal of positions from the 2007 All-Ireland semi-final when Limerick downed a much-fancied Waterford side.
“Limerick. These guys, their short game is unbelievable. They could technically be going for three-in-a-row bar they kind of fell asleep in the first half against Kilkenny last year. It’s great for us to come up against a side that is so favoured. Even on The Sunday Game, they were talking about Waterford’s weaknesses, not Limerick’s.”
As the county of Waterford readies itself for only a third final since 1959, Molumphy admits it’s discombobulating to be so far away and yet so close.
“The only feel you get for the build-up is when you’re ringing home and they have the bunting out in the village. It’s the whole county that is involved. If you were at home, you’d see it the whole time.
“There’s a park nearby and we go off every Saturday to play hurling. Niamh would have won an All-Ireland with Lismore and played with Waterford as well. Nobody else is playing it here.
"It’s only when you’re talking to your mother or your friends that you realise how big it is. If you were at home, you’d be absolutely dreaming about it at night-time and everything.”
On Sunday, the Molumphys will be decked out in the white and blue. There are officers from India and Italy who are mad to see the final.
Molumphy is happy to show them a game but not this one. Not when he is a role to play as distant as it is. And if the children are noisy, they’ll be told to go for a puck around outside.
“You’re watching the team doing the warm-up and Jack would be pointing out, ‘There’s Liam Cahill. There’s Stephen Frampton, Micky Bevans’ because they would have come down training with me at the start of the year, running around the place. It’ll be a serious atmosphere here the afternoon of the final.
When you’re not involved in person, it’s not as much fun but it’s serious.
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