Medals can’t be only focus, says McGrath
‘There is a relentlessness about Mayo and Rochford’
THEY are two counties with All-Ireland famines dating back to the 1950s.
And both came agonisingly close to that elusive title last September.
Both counties possess an enduring All-Ireland obsession and neutrals the country over would love to see them finally getting over the line.
No wonder Waterford hurling manager Derek McGrath acknowledges the parallels between his team and the Mayo footballers.
‘Say if you go down to Killarney on the mid-term break in October and you meet someone from down the country, they’d say “Ah, I’d love to see Waterford win the AllIreland.” Then you meet the next person and they’d say they’d love to see Mayo win the All-Ireland,’ said McGrath.
‘There’s almost an affinity of how people felt about the two counties. Mayo have been a lot more consistent in terms of reaching All-Ireland finals over the last seven or eight years; they’ve been really, really close. They’ve lost a couple of All-Irelands by a point. So I don’t think we’ve reached that level that Mayo have been at in terms of an absolute kind of top-two or top-three team.
‘I’d just be impressed how Mayo do their business in terms of going back all the time and just going at it all the time.
‘They’re fairly relentless. I think people are afraid to say they’re gone as well, because they know there’s more in them. I’d have great admiration for them,’ he added.
He has a lot of time, too, for Mayo manager Stephen Rochford, referencing his decision to place talisman Aidan O’Shea at full-back to mark Kieran Donaghy.
‘I think what is very relevant is the nature of the people in each county, they long for it so much. That’s why I’d have great admiration for [Stephen] Rochford from afar, just even tactical decisions he made coming into the Kerry game (2017 All-Ireland semi-final) with the Donaghy-O’Shea [tactic]. Just not being afraid.
‘Even back to the All-Ireland final replay where he replaced the goalkeeper a couple of years ago. He had a plan around the kickouts and he was willing to back himself on it.’
Then there’s the fact that Aidan O’Shea himself is on record as saying he is a big fan of Ken McGrath, expressing his own affinity for Waterford hurling and one of its favourite sons. O’Shea feels McGrath’s career shows how a player doesn’t have to win an AllIreland to secure his own legacy.
‘I don’t think you do,’ echoes the Waterford manager, speaking at the launch of the 19th annual KN Group All-Ireland GAA Golf Challenge in aid of GAA-associated charities. ‘All those players — Ken McGrath, John Mullane, Tony Browne, all those guys — I think it’s a bracket that perhaps ye might put them into, as the greatest players never to win an All-Ireland but it still means they’re great players, part of great teams. People are becoming a little bit more knowledgeable in terms of their respect for people that do those things, that kind of shine without getting to the top of the mountain.
‘Someone would read this and say “they lack the ruthlessness”. We’re after being in five finals in the last four years: two League finals, two Munster finals and the All-Ireland final and we’ve only won one trophy out of the five, a 20 per cent win-rate in finals.
‘Now, if I was talking to some of the lads, they might say it’s all about the medal but my personal opinion is no, it’s about what you give to it while you’re there and when you walk away from it, have you given it everything that you have. That’s okay with me.’
Between the Christmas holiday to New York and Cancun, and a truncated pre-season training block, his prophecy that Waterford could struggle this spring has been a self-fulfilling one. Even if Waterford beat Clare in the last round of the League this weekend, a -19 score difference is almost certain to land them in a Division 1A relegation play-off.
‘It’s been difficult now. I probably flagged it, not in a cute sense.
‘I just knew we hadn’t enough done. We just have to stick to the process now and try and grind our way out of it and get some sort of nuggets of hope towards the Championship, given the new format.’
It might have been somewhat different if Waterford hadn’t lost a third match on the bounce at home to Kilkenny.
That day proved to him that Kilkenny weren’t just back but that they had never gone away, pointing to the fuss made of Waterford’s minor win in 2013 compared to Kilkenny’s supposed lack of success at underage level.
‘I’m not professing the “told you so” line but I just don’t get it. Everyone fails to notice that Kilkenny won the minor the year after.
‘It doesn’t even register that they won a minor and got to the Under 21 final last year, albeit beaten by a very good Limerick team. [St] Kieran’s won four of the last six All-Ireland colleges, beating Kilkenny CBS in three of the finals which means Kilkenny CBS were the second-best team.
‘I said the day they beat us in the League, if you really watched after 20 minutes of the Clare match at home they were coming like a steam train, the absolute sustained effort they were putting in, so Kilkenny are never going to be far away from it.’
The new scheduling means a novel Hurling League final under floodlights on a Saturday night later this month and while McGrath is supportive, he admits the players aren’t so enthusiastic.
‘Floodlit final? I like the lights — the lads hate them. They say it’s a totally different game. I just like the atmosphere that’s there on the Saturday night games. I like the whole idea of them. It’s just an opinion. But you have to listen to players on that front.’
‘We must stick to the process and get some nuggets of hope’