Sideline foes join forces to defend the system
WE slip down into the bowels of the new stadium, unsure whether to go in search of quotes or character witnesses.
Through certain eyes, the hurling sweeper is an instrument of Satan and in the time it takes us to reach the prim media auditorium, news emerges of a virtual Papal denunciation of what Waterford and Wexford have just done to the old game. Just now, purists would like every Championship weekend to be some kind of referendum on this modern taste for supplementing backlines.
As it happens, neither Henry Shefflin nor Michael Duignan has been on live TV duty, but their views are popularly aligned with the broad interpretation of what we’ve seen as a game hopelessly snarled up in nets of the managers’ making.
Should Derek McGrath and Davy Fitzgerald be coming to us with insights or a plea for clemency then? McGrath will meet the fresh criticism with a gently wry sense of irony whilst Davy will, forever true to himself, face it like a shark arriving into a swarm of tuna. It makes for a compelling postscript.
MILITARISTIC
Waterford are in the last four of the All-Ireland, but all the talk here is of systems and the faintly militaristic use of men. McGrath and Fitzgerald are both high achievers as managers, yet their refusal to buy into the notion that every game ought to be a random bullfight has for some time now exposed them to the ire of what they might interpret as royalists.
It’s true, the game we’ve seen wasn’t exactly opera. It was tight and wheezy and tactical and effectively settled by a Waterford goal on the stroke of half-time that jolted everyone with the sudden energy of an old firehouse when the bell goes.
Once Kevin Moran’s goal went in, the product of momentary selfharm in the buttressed Wexford backline, you would have thought all the structure and control might give way to, if not abandon, at least a certain whimsy. It gave Waterford a five-point cushion and the sight of Wexford’s sweeper Shaun Murphy then being flattened by an opponent’s shoulder on his way to the dressing-room suggested high dander might be in order on the resumption.
But Wexford this year are the antithesis of cliche and scored the first three points of the second half to suggest cool chests and clear heads might indeed be the road to go here.
In the end, though, Waterford’s size and superior development would see them home, the paleness of the game triggering that florid postscript.
McGrath conceals his irritation well when addressing the denigration of a policy that has brought Waterford from virtual oblivion to concrete top-four status on his watch (reaching a third consecutive All-Ireland semi-final).
“The danger I suppose is there’s so much debate about it that it seeps into your team,” he reflects.
“Look I think criticism is part and parcel. I wouldn’t be arguing with Michael Duignan, who has a lot more All-Ireland medals, a lot more credit in the bank than me in terms of hurling stock… and Henry with ten All-Ireland medals. Jesus I wouldn’t hear tell of arguing against what they’d know about hurling.
“Praise your enemies. Who said that? Oscar Wilde was it?”
His words are sugared with, if not sarcasm, a certain irony. He tells us: “The play didn’t flow against Offaly and we got 1-35. I think we got 4-23 against Kilkenny. What I would see is the lack of clarity on why we got those four goals against Kilkenny. Like we’re trying to play the game in a manner that suits our players, that we like and they like.
“Would you believe that from 2009, we’ve scored more than any other Waterford team in the last ten years. From League and Championship. Just thought it was an interesting stat to throw out there for you.”
He tells us then how he spends a weekend.
“I was very nervous yesterday, couldn’t even watch the Tipp-Clare game,” he sighs.
“I was watching bits of it and had the commentary turned down. I didn’t want to hear what was said (on RTE), especially if they were previewing our game. I was saying to myself ‘I know what’s coming now!’
“So I just said to myself to keep myself in good form... my youngest son was four yesterday so we went in to Rockin Joe’s and had a burger after the game.”
Davy Fitz’s style is to come to the story like an uncaged tiger. There is no nuance to him in these moments, everything communicated in primary colours.
“The people need to wake up,” he says, his voice tuned to a high volume. “If they want the same one or two teams to play hurling and be successful, that’s fine.
“The job Derek McGrath has done and the stick he has taken is totally unwarranted. What he has done for Waterford, bringing them back to the top, is incredible.
“It’s easy, easy to knock people. I’d like to see their track records when it comes to managing, because it’s a lot different to playing, I can promise you that.”
Davy’s view is that smart teams play a game to suit what’s at their disposal, not to entertain.
“If you want to play a game that’s completely open, that’s fine,” he stresses. “But we look at the last 15 All-Irelands and there’s nearly been the same two teams in the whole lot of them. I don’t know how ye feel about, but I’d like a change.
“It’s nothing but negativity, negativity all the time. I don’t want to have a go at the likes of Henry Shefflin and Michael Duignan, but you know what? There is a time when you have to stand up for yourself and say what you believe.
“Am I right? I don’t know. But I believe in what I’m doing and I think in order for you to really throw yourself out there, you have to stand on that sideline with 40,000 people there to experience what it’s about.
“That isn’t an easy place to be.”