FITTING STAGE FOR McGRATH’S OPERA
‘Kingston’s Keady tribute was a touch of true class’
ONE of the great operatic adventures in Irish life runs for another three weeks. The Wagnerian passions governing Waterford hurling in this generation remain white-hot. Their passage to a second All-Ireland final in 10 seasons was complicated, messy, and exultant.
It left untied ends trailing after them that will be scuffed and straggling after the inevitable engagements looming with the intricacies of GAA justice.
Derek McGrath sat afterwards and rubbed his head, and it was no wonder. He was like a man asked to explain the mysteries of love to a roomful of strangers.
Because this is a love story: between McGrath and his players; between the team and their people; and between Waterford and the wider world.
They face in the final Galway, another of hurling’s sweeter stories, and a county whose presence in the 2017 final is sharpened by the sudden death of Tony Keady.
But Waterford’s entanglements with the sport of hurling over the past two decades have been a fraught and intense opera of their own.
McGrath is at the centre of its latest act. He is a palpably decent man, but his head buzzed like a disturbed hive here. He had the number 5 written inside a circle on the back of his left hand, confirming instantly that, yes, it alluded to the suspended Tadhg de Búrca.
The worry for Waterford fans is that McGrath will need a sleeve of tattoos to remind him of the causes they are fighting for in the final, as Austin and Conor Gleeson seem in grave danger of missing the match.
The manager will be rubbing his head a good deal over the next 20 days.
Good thoughts will fill it as well as challenging ones, however, because there was a clinical certainty to the job they did on Cork that is not usually associated with this iteration of the team. The side of Ken McGrath, John Mullane and Dan Shanahan were buccaneers, but McGrath has fitted out this group with more sober tactics.
They were faithful to them in front of 72,000 people in Croke Park but when the time came to strike for the win, they knew it and they did it.
Austin Gleeson led with the thrusts, and in a blurry few moments in the second half, he managed to make up for a torrid first one, that will be most remembered for his ugly tangle with Luke Meade that resulted in the helmet being torn from the head of the Corkman. It is difficult to see how he could or should escape suspension for the offence. The scale of his loss is easily registered by reference to his impact inside two minutes, from the dispossession of Christopher Joyce and pass to find Jamie Barron that put Waterford a point up, to his own wonder goal, in which he ran from the 65 and tore past four red jerseys before wafting the sliotar to the net. No team could promptly substitute class of that kind, and especially a Waterford side that plays five in attack and can find free scoring an unconquerable poser. The search for tickets will see Waterford and Galway pervaded with a gold-rush frenzy for these coming three weeks. Two counties desperate for success and unaccustomed to it on September days will charge hurling with a sense of vitality it won’t have felt since the Kilkenny-Tipperary epics at the turn of the decade.
THE memory of Tony Keady will feature regularly, as it did here. His name was announced as part of the pre-match remembrance of those recently deceased, but before the announcer had finished talking, Croke Park burst into spontaneous applause.
In a touch of true class, Cork manager Kieran Kingston concluded his post-match briefing with an expression of sympathy on behalf of his team to the Keady family.
Hurling and Gaelic games generally, can infuriate with their inconsistencies and tribalism, but at times of wrenching loss the dignity of the community can always be relied upon.
A feeling of confraternity was strained when the match began, with both management groups including runners who wanted to be as invested in the action as any player. Diarmuid O’Sullivan on behalf of Cork and Dan Shanahan for Waterford sprinted on and off the pitch throughout.
In one exchange, Shanahan seemed to run only to shadow O’Sullivan, until the Corkman barked at him and the referee, James Owens, intervened. He spoke to the two of them but whatever he said, his censure did not stop their gallop.
It is impossible to see how either man could usefully impart anything deeper than snatched encouragement or the briefest tactical instruction in their swoops in and out of play.
One supposes it gives the supporters something to focus on when the action is getting treacly, as it did at times in the first half here. Waterford’s sweeper system survived de Búrca’s ban as Darragh Fives filled the role splendidly.
As important was the Waterford decision to start Michael Walsh on Mark Coleman. The Cork teenager was a contender for hurler of the year before throw-in but Walsh kept him pinned back at left half-back before he was reassigned later in the half.
The fluid Cork play of early summer was made viscous by Waterford’s style. That was a tactical victory for McGrath but it was also an important philosophical one, too. There are plenty holding their noses at the tactics in which he has tutored this team. The manager understands, however, that this gives his men their best chance of success.
Rumour had it that some of the natives were getting skittish after Waterford lost to Cork in the Munster Championship semifinal, but their trust in McGrath was not misplaced.
He will spend plenty of nights rubbing that forehead as he deals with disciplinary concerns and the tactical consequences that result. That is not to mention the bustling Galway team that await on September 3.
Nothing is ever easy for Waterford, and nor is it dull. Their splendid story is ready for the grandest stage.