WATERFORD ON A MISSION
Waterford star Gleeson says Déise are consumed by their quest to end the 59-year wait for an All-Ireland win
AFEW THINGS you might not have known about Austin Gleeson. His passion for Liverpool FC was inherited from his father who was actually at Heysel Stadium this very week 33 years ago when the European Cup final between Juventus and Liverpool was overshadowed by the tragedy that unfolded off the pitch. Last night, the Waterford senior hurling team were bunkered down in a Limerick hotel watching this year’s final ahead of their first outing in the round-robin Munster Senior Hurling Championship against Clare at Cusack Park.
Gleeson has been told he had a hurley in his hand since the age of two. His cousin, who used to do a bit of child-minding for the family, recalled him getting an early start.
Still only 22, the 2016 Hurler of the Year reckons it will be at least another three years before he reaches his prime. After watching the opportunity to win a Celtic Cross slip by last September (2019 would mark 60 years since Waterford’s last All-Ireland), he can’t imagine himself still hurling in his mid-30s without that all-elusive medal, like teammate and current All Star Michael ‘Brick’ Walsh.
As the conversation turns to another wearer of the number six jersey, Ken McGrath, and how he is venerated in Waterford and beyond – is it really all about the All-Ireland winner’s medal, given McGrath is regarded as one of the greats without it?
‘To be honest, I’d say if you asked Ken, “Would you take all the plaudits and everything that you’re after getting throughout the years and everyone remembering you as one of the greatest ever, or would you just take the All-Ireland medal?”, there’s no problem which one he’d pick – he’d pick the All-Ireland medal.
‘There’s only two teams who have ever done it in Waterford. It’s something you need to have, something we’re striving [for], doing everything possible to get there.
‘Same with his (McGrath’s) team in that era. In 2007, 2008, they were close. Won the League and Munster in 2007 and then Limerick over-turned them in the semi-final. In 2008, they got to the final and just never really got out of the dressing room, playing against probably the greatest team of all time in that Kilkenny team.
‘It’s something we need to really hone in on and go for. Even if you stop playing, you will always remember, “he was on that team that won the All-Ireland”. I’d say the medal is the most important part.’
Waterford manager Derek McGrath has mentioned parallels with the Mayo footballers in terms of the two counties’ enduring AllIreland obsession since previous landmark triumphs in the 1950s.
‘I was talking to Cillian O’Connor at the All-Stars,’ says Gleeson of a chance encounter with Mayo’s top Championship scorer.
‘He was saying that the two teams are identical, that they have this dream. No matter what happens in the province, it’s that dream of getting that All-Ireland. He was just saying “no matter what anyone says, whether it’s your family, friends, your enemy – anyone – keep your head focused, keep going straight”. That’s their mentality, they are after losing All-Ireland finals by a point to Dublin.
‘That’s incredible to have that mentality to keep coming back, keep fighting harder and going harder to try and get it back.
‘Last year was our first All-Ireland final, we lost by three points. There are a lot of similarities.’
He looks at Michael ‘Brick’ Walsh (right), a 35-year-old All-Star still chasing the dream, and says he can’t imagine himself hanging in like that.
‘No. I honestly can’t. Especially the way the game is after evolving the last six or seven years.
‘If you reach the age of 30 playing now, you’ll be going well to be honest. It’s so intense, so quick, so energetic, so fitness [orientated]… everything is just 150 per cent. Even tactics, all that stuff. I can’t see myself playing til my mid-30s, no.
‘Unless you start looking at it that, if you get to the 27, 28 bracket, you get an extra month or so to get the body right.
‘There’s a lot you probably could do to enhance your career. But the hits nowadays are… Liam Rushe played against Kilkenny and he was like an American footballer running into the tackles. There are players going to go that step further.’
No player bent the summer to his own will the same way as Gleeson in 2016. It’s part of the reason he is an ambassador for Littlewoods Ireland’s #StyleOfPlay campaign for the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, his dazzling level of skill, artistry, scoring, and high fielding – in full flow and at the peak of his powers, he has the full package.
It’s just that 2017 did come across at times like a bestselling solo artist’s difficult second album, even if there were gems to be found across a track list that had a bit of everything. Taken off in the Munster Championship semi-final against Cork. Six points from play in the qualifier against Offaly. Five picture-book scores in the milestone victory against Kilkenny.
Workmanlike in a turgid quarterfinal involving Wexford.
A goal from the hurling gods in the All-Ireland semi-final against Cork, a mesmeric weaving solo through the heart of the defence followed by the instinctive genius of a cushioned flick to the net off his stick (while lucky to avoid a charge of faceguard interference in the same game). Frustrated by the finish of the final against Galway when he just couldn’t impose himself.
A belt on the ankle in a challenge game against Dublin has complicated the build-up to Waterford’s Munster campaign, forcing him to sit out this afternoon’s opener against Clare. However quick he can get back on the field, he feels he is years still from peaking.
‘I think so, yeah. Twenty-five, 26, 27 is probably the aim for that. I’m still 22 at the moment. I’m still making all the little childish mistakes on the field. Not so much as when I was 18 when I was shooting over my shoulder from 70 yards!
‘I’m learning more so, different things. I keep listening to the older brigade, the grandad as I call him on the team, Brick. I keep listening to those.
‘I’d hope my game will always improve. I mightn’t cover as much ground, I mightn’t do as much on the field but there’s little things that might give me an extra percentage.’
One of the bright lights on Waterford’s breakthrough All-Ireland winning minor side in 2013, there was a brief moment two years later when he texted senior manager Derek McGrath to say he was quitting the panel only to be cajoled back by the man who taught and coached him at school in De La Salle College.
He says it was a momentary weakness. ‘I sent the message but if he texted back to say, “okay, fair enough” I still would have gone back to him two weeks later. I don’t know what I was thinking back then. It was just one of those moments. I remember we got beat in an Under 21 game and it was like, “Aw, beat again.”
‘I just wanted to start winning. Trying to change my mentality and go out and perform better.
‘If you don’t enjoy it, you won’t want to be there. You won’t do anything, really. I can’t see myself not enjoying it ever. I’m born and bred into it, since I was three or four.
‘I don’t know who I was talking to, think it was one of my cousins, she was minding me when I was younger and I was two and I had a hurley in my hand.
‘I came out of minor and was straight in to the senior set-up so I was literally hurling for the last… I won’t know what to do with myself if I ever stop.’
I will never stop enjoying it. I’m bred into hurling since I was three