Kevin Moran: 'I wasn’t right. And if you’re not right at 33, you’re going to struggle'
Kevin Moran of Waterford: After 143 games for the Deise in league and championship, Moran announced his inter-county retirement this week.
Before Waterford played Clare in June, Kevin Moran knew his starting position on the chessboard and how Waterford had planned to move the chess pieces around during the match.
Moran was to line out in the half-back line. Tony Kelly was named at midfield but Calum Lyons was designated as a man-marker on Kelly if he played anywhere as a forward. When Kelly started in the full-forward line, the knock-on effect was Shane McNulty moving to the half-back line and Moran starting at midfield.
Moran had lined out at wing-back in Waterford’s final league game against Tipperary two weeks earlier before switching to midfield where he played his best game of the league. But he damaged his hip-flexor in that match, which impacted on his preparation for the Clare game. Mentally, he had also visualised a different role for himself than the one he suddenly found himself in at the throw-in.
“At the start of the game I was saying to myself, ‘Jeez, I have to go out midfield now’,” says Moran. “You know at the back of your head that there’s a reason why you’re saying that, because you don’t want to be out there. I wasn’t right. And if you’re not right at 33 in the middle of the Munster Championship, you’re going to struggle.”
Moran was on the back foot from the first whistle but so were Waterford. Moran did a huge amount of running and chasing, which isn’t always a great sign for a midfielder when they aren’t on the ball; Moran was limited to just three possessions. In the 33rd minute, his number went up on the board to be replaced.
“When you’re in that moment, you’re thinking ‘F**k this, I am done, this is over’,” says Moran now.
“You could have a bit of self-pity and say to yourself, ‘Ah I wasn’t going too bad, sure everyone else was going bad as well’. But you can’t lie to yourself.
“I actually didn’t feel too bad walking off. Maybe if it was a full-house and the game was edge-of-the-seat stuff, I think it would have hurt me a lot more. But the fact that it wasn’t an enjoyable game, that it was a disaster for us all full-stop, it actually made it easier for me to accept.”
Moran was 33 and in his 16th season but accepting the cold hard reality is never easy when immersed in the white heat of a championship season, where thoughts of the end-game are contrary to all normal conditions.
The perception was that Moran’s days as a starter with Waterford were probably behind him but, while Liam Cahill made a raft of changes, both structurally and in personnel, for Waterford’s opening qualifier against Laois, Moran was retained on the first 15.
He played at wing-forward and ended the match with 1-1 before being hauled off after 48 minutes. The heat was 32 degrees in Nowlan Park that afternoon, but Moran was substituted because he had pulled his hip flexor again.
“I just wasn’t moving well all year,” says Moran. “I was always playing catch-up and that game set me back a lot.”
That was the endgame for Moran because he never played with Waterford again. He was an unused sub for Waterford’s remaining three games against Galway, Tipperary, and Limerick.
“It was frustrating, but I wasn’t annoyed or anything,” he says. “You’re part of a team, a panel. I was just focused on getting back to training, working hard, and making sure I had a positive attitude.
“The team were going well, there was never going to be too many changes. Liam (Cahill) has done a brilliant job and the type of players he was going to bring on — young fellas with pace and runners off the shoulder — I was never going to fit that bill. I was hopeful I might get a run, but it was always unlikely.”
After 143 games for the county in league and championship, Moran announced his inter-county retirement this week. He walks away from the game a colossus, especially in Waterford; with 60 championship appearances, only Michael ‘Brick’ Walsh and Tony Browne played more championship matches than Moran.
His last time in a Waterford jersey was the All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Limerick in August.
Deep down, Moran knew that he wouldn’t be back there again with Waterford, but it wasn’t his style to process the endgame that quickly, to satisfy in his own head that it was all over.
“You’d be hugely frustrated, but I wasn’t thinking in the moment, ‘This is the end now,’” he says. “Being all sentimental wouldn’t be my style. I wouldn’t be reminiscing about all the good days, but that was my mentality as a player. If we had a massive win, I would never go over the top. Likewise, if we had a bad defeat, I wouldn’t get too down.
“I wouldn’t be an emotional guy. Now that I have retired, I haven’t thought back and felt I’m going to miss it all. It probably won’t even sink in when I go to a league match; it will probably only hit me when the crowds are back for a big Munster Championship match and everybody is on the edge of their seats. That’s probably when I’ll really miss it.”
Moran’s dynamism and endurance were extraordinary but the toll on the body operates at a different level at his age. Daily dips in the ocean at Tramore or Dunmore were no longer sufficient to massage his body back into the condition it needed to be to survive and prosper at this level.
Despite being a central cog in Waterford’s journey to last year’s All-Ireland final, Moran may have walked away afterwards if the season hadn’t ended as late as it did in December.
“I really enjoyed last year,” he says. “It was hard to say that I wasn’t going back because I was in good nick and had a lot of hard work done. Covid shut everything down again between January and April, but, if there had been your usual gap between one season ending and another beginning, I probably wouldn’t have gone back.
“This year was frustrating with injuries and not getting game-time, but I didn’t deserve game-time. You could say to yourself, ‘If I put in a really huge effort over this winter, I could get back’. But I know the level the lads are operating.
“You don’t want to be there for the sake of being there. Plus, there are plenty of good young players in Waterford.
Life has just moved on and Moran has found himself having to move to the rhythm of that new beat. His son Kian is just one. Ella, 5, started primary school in August and is already immersed in indoor camogie and Irish dancing.
“You are busy in the evening so it’s about much more than just you now,” he says. “My wife Aoife likes to do a good bit of training too, so I have to take that into account. Aoife always facilitated my career so it’s time for me to give a good bit back now.”
Moran gave everything he had to Waterford for close to two decades. For most of that time, Waterford couldn’t do without him because Moran’s athleticism and skill-set allowed them to evolve a fluid role to suit themselves.
He was the ultimate modern player. Moran wasn’t even through the first half of his career when he had played in seven different positions. During his first 30 championship appearances, Moran had played in every line bar the full-forward line, but he spent the 2007 league winning campaign moonlighting at full-forward.
Transition and improvisation were a continual theme with Waterford and Moran was a central component in that process. When Waterford got radical with a new system under Derek McGrath, Moran’s versatility and athleticism was always going to be key to carrying it out.
His role in the team became elastic; they needed him to defend and expected him to attack. Moran was never out of place in any position on the field. His best season was in 2017 when he captained Waterford to the All-Ireland final. Moran, who ended that campaign with 2-13 from play, won his second All-Star and was shortlisted for Hurler-of-the-Year.
“It was disappointing to lose that final but that 2017 season was still such a brilliant time,” says Moran. “I enjoyed everything about it, the build-up to the final, the training, the spirit we had created in the group. Those three years between 2015-17 were incredibly enjoyable.”
There were setbacks and disappointments, but Moran has never harboured regrets. Some defeats broke his heart, but the fractures always mended quickly. “I lost three All-Irelands, but I have no regrets at all,” he says. “It doesn’t come into my mind and get me down in the dumps.”
Moran’s mindset was always defined by reflection and self-examination. He would carefully process any setback and dispose of the toxic waste but one incident from the 2017 All-Ireland final was always hard to eradicate.
In the 48th minute of that match, Moran had a chance to put Waterford two points ahead. His shot drifted wide and Galway went on to grab the game by the scruff of the neck, scoring the next four points. Waterford were always chasing the game afterwards. Moran still often finds himself chasing that moment.
“Ah, being honest, I still often think about that wide,” he says. “What frustrated me about it more than anything was that I probably should have taken Aidan Harte on because Maurice (Shanahan) was inside me. If I had got past Harte and offloaded to Maurice, we probably would have got a goal and then we definitely would have won the match.
“In the back of my head, Derek would often say ‘There’s a time to go for it and a time to keep the scoreboard ticking’. It was a lazy shot. I didn’t concentrate enough on it. That Canal End goal can be deceiving enough at times, but as soon as I took the shot, I thought it was over.
“I’m not saying I beat myself up about it, but it does play on my mind a small bit. You do think back on what could have been. We were never going to beat Kilkenny in the 2008 (All-Ireland) final, or beat Limerick in the 2020 All-Ireland, but I think if we played better that day that we could have beaten Galway. Then again, it’s all about balance too. The game could have been gone from us early on if I hadn’t got a goal. That was probably the best goal I ever scored.”
The memories of missed chances and lost matches are often evoked by that quixotic attempt of wanting time back, but being able to strike that balance between idealism, fanaticism, and realism was always one of Moran’s greatest strengths. He always wanted more, but there was a limit to how much he could empty himself in that manic pursuit.
“At the start of your inter-county career, you’re always craving to perform at the top level,” he says. “That frustrated me at the start when I was 18, 19 and I wasn’t up to that level. But I did put in a lot of work and I reached a level I felt I was able to operate at. After that then, it was all about being able to enjoy it.
“You can’t do everything at 100% or else you’d drive yourself cracked. If you’re doing things 80-90% every day, I’d be happy with that. I even took that approach with training. I trained extremely hard and I looked after myself, but I wouldn’t live like a monk either for the whole year.
“Maybe that caught up with a small bit at the end, but I always felt you needed that balance at inter-county level.
There were many great days during Moran and Waterford’s seemingly eternal dance through one season after another. After so many years of suffering and oppression at the hands of Kilkenny, some of Moran’s greatest memories are victories against their neighbours; the 2017 qualifier in Thurles; last year’s All-Ireland semi-final in Croke Park.
Waterford ended those seasons as All-Ireland finalists, but the glory of the journey is never defined by the final destination. Some of Moran’s most cherished memories are hewn from the hardship that moulded, shaped and bonded the group along the relentless road.
At the end of McGrath’s first year, the squad trained like a US Navy Seal unit that winter. On every Saturday for nearly three months, they did double sessions, one of which involved an unending series of 1K hill runs on a horse gallops in Kilmacthomas.
“Aidan O’Brien used to break in horses there,” says Moran. “It was animalistic stuff, but it really gelled the group and made us so tight. We had a tough transitional few years before that, but I think we created our own generation of players with Waterford during that time.”
Waterford’s quest to end the famine and win an All-Ireland continues, but their modern history has been defined by some brilliant players and teams. The team of the 2000s will always be remembered for their spontaneity and uniqueness, their brilliant style and class, their idiosyncrasies and distinctive character.
The last decade produced another excellent team, with different qualities and a completely different identity, but Moran was largely the emblem of that group. Brave. Classy. Dynamic. Versatile. Stoic. Resolute. Relentless. The ultimate modern player.
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