Moran hoping for bragging rights with De La Salle out to foil ‘mix for six’
THERE’S no escaping the hype of tomorrow’s Waterford SHC final when Kevin Moran is inside the walls of De La Salle College and he has been counting down the hours before hearing the bell to dismiss everyone for the weekend.
As a maths and business teacher in the Waterford city secondary school, Moran is surrounded by everything associated with the small ball as young hurlers from his own club De La Salle as well as rivals and county final opponents Ballygunner at every turn.
The staff room is the regular sanctuary to escape the madness but Moran can count former Waterford boss and clubmate Derek McGrath among his teaching colleagues, as well as Déise team-mate and Ballygunner defender Philip Mahony.
“There’s a bit of a kick in there at the moment alright, but we’ll see who has the bragging rights on Monday,” Moran said yesterday just hours before clocking off and concentrating on the unenviable task which they have at hand.
Ballygunner have been an irresistible force in Waterford hurling over the past decade and the reigning Munster champions head into tomorrow’s decider hoping to land the ‘mix for six’ having clocked up a remarkable 31-game unbeaten streak.
Having shared a Waterford dressing room with the likes of Pauric and Philip Mahony, Barry Coughlan and former AllStar goalkeeper Stephen O’Keeffe – and skippered the Déise to the 2017 All-Ireland final – Moran knows his rivals better than most.
The two-time All-Star has no hesitation in saying that the ’Gunner are among the game’s elite, but he also knows that their winning sequence must come to an end at some juncture and he hopes they are primed to do so in Walsh Park.
“They are in the top five teams in the country, no doubt about it. We’re massive underdogs, there’s no other way of putting that and we know that ourselves but sometimes we can be at our best when we’re like that,” Moran said.
“Someone will have to take them down at some stage but they are a fair outfit, no doubt about it. It’s getting to a stage now where they are winning nearly everything they’re competing for. They’re in the intermediate county final as well with their second team and while they have the resources, they are definitely making the most of what they have.
“It’d be nice to put a stop to their sixin-a-row, of course it would, but they’ve been deserving champions in Waterford for the last five years, even more than that. Someone has to take them down but they’re winning so much around them that they’re getting used to it.
“They’re expecting to win and it’ll be difficult. They’d probably admit as well, though, that we’re the closest team to them and you’ve got the two best teams in the county facing each other.”
De La Salle reached this year’s final without a defeat to their name and have fought back from losing positions on several occasions with Moran hoping that they are in with a fighting chance of landing the telling blow going down the home straight, unlike their final meeting two years ago.
“You have to be in the game to try and win it. Two years ago we weren’t in the game and after 20 minutes we were gone, we were up against it. That’s something that we’re conscious of,” Moran said of their eight-point defeat.
“We’re not going to win the game in the first 20 minutes but you can certainly lose it. We weren’t good enough that day but we’ve improved since then and a few of our younger lads have matured but Ballygunner could have improved as well.”
New Waterford boss Liam Cahill is sure to be talent spotting this weekend before assembling his squad for 2020 and having made his debut with the Déise 13 years ago, Moran’s inter-county future is likely to be speculated over the winter months.
That’s for another day, however, as the 32-year-old centre-back hopes to secure his fourth Waterford title and with former teammate and club legend Brian ‘Bull’ Phelan at the helm, this one would be particularly sweet.
“He’s been brilliant all year and it’d be great to do it for him as well, he’s probably the most fondly liked character up in De La Salle and I think everyone will be rooting for him. No one could have a bad word to say about him.”
With another club legend in John Mullane retiring from club action two years ago, Phelan has assembled a young squad backboned by a host of underage stars with recent U-21 titles to their names.
Lively forwards like Eddie Meaney and Cormac McCann are the ones steering the De La Salle ship – along with Waterford star and captain Jake Dillon as well as Meath import Jack Fagan – but Moran knows it will take a monumental effort to take down the champions.
“It’s nearly kind of their (the younger players) team now, it’s after moving on a bit in the last couple of years and we’ll need everyone to put in a huge shift if we’re to have any chance of toppling them,” Moran said.
Given that Moran was born and raised in Ballygunner territory – Waterford do not implement the parish rule – this would be a particularly sweet victory should they pull it off, and he’d like nothing more than to be the one with a winning smile on his face in school next week.