Slings and arrows fail to offset McGrath’s quest for silverware
THIS afternoon will be Derek McGrath’s defining moment as Waterford manager. But it hasn’t been a straight road that has led the former under-age star to Croke Park. Doubt has accompanied him along the way.
Even as recently as the middle of June, the team seemed to have taken a wrong turn.
Leaving Semple Stadium on the evening of June 18, McGrath knew the storm clouds were gathering. His team’s flat performance against Cork left a lot of questions and there were some who wouldn’t be shy in asking them.
Even though his team have claimed a National League title and made three successive All-Ireland semi-finals, McGrath has had to shield himself from plenty of shellfire over the course of his four years. And his critics have rarely needed much to load their guns.
In his difficult first season, heavy League defeats in Nowlan Park and Cusack Park saw his team accused of not being able to defend. The same team that is now often denigrated for being too defensive. That same season, he was vilified for placing Jamie Barron (below) at midfield – the same player who goes into today’s final as arguably the best centrefielder in the game.
Most managers will say they close their ears to the outside noise. Their default answer is that they don’t read the newspapers or listen to what is being said.
That’s not McGrath’s way. Candour has been a defining trait of his managerial reign. It is why the Waterford boss is such an antidote to the colourless and sanitised personalities that now populate the inter-county landscape.
With refreshing honesty, he freely admits that the criticism does hurt, quoting Shakespeare as any good English teacher would.
‘I’d love to say that I’m not human enough to feel it but it’s like Macduff says in Macbeth, I must feel it as a man first. I don’t think it makes you any less of a man if you feel the hurt,’ McGrath says.
In these times though, the worst critics are no longer found on a high stool in some pub corner as they once were. Rather, they are behind a keyboard. McGrath is not on social media but his wife is, and he can often tell by her mood if she has come across something particular hurtful.
‘I am not on Facebook or Twitter but my wife is and I think she has a sneaky look at what’s being said. I’d know by her mood that she might have read something and naturally, she would be hurt by any type of criticism directed at her husband.’
As a secondary school teacher, as well as a county manager eager to protect his players, McGrath is concerned by the direction, and occasionally vile nature, of the abuse on social media. ‘It is getting very personal, and I think it is going to get worse. Not for myself personally, but in general. Even in school, the whole feeling is that social media is making things worse when it comes to criticism and abuse. You nearly have to go on local radio and make a political broadcast to quell it at times. ‘It is unfair on the players involved, given the effort they put in. That’s the mantra that we all put out there but it is the truth. The truth is that there isn’t enough balance in terms of what they put into it. Mistakes will be made and they are entitled to be constructively criticised. But personalised criticism is just not right and I will stand over that.’
Indeed, McGrath accepts the criticism that came after the defeat by Cork in midsummer was justified, given that the team had simply failed to turn up.
‘We knew there would be a storm of criticism after the Cork match, but that comes in every county. I am often asked about that weekend and comments that were made, but I looked at Rory Gallagher and Tyrone hammered them the same day and I looked at Andy McEntee and Kildare beat them well that weekend. And you wonder if they are getting it as hard in Donegal and Meath, but they are.
‘That is what comes with it,’ McGrath says.
The Waterford manager believes there is a collective empathy between all county managers. He went to great lengths to praise Stephen Rochford’s courage in reinventing Aidan O’Shea as a full-back during the All-Ireland press day. ‘Maybe, we should form a Gaelic Managers Association, a GMA like the LMA in England,’ he says, halfjokingly.
While he has received plenty of flak from within his own county, McGrath insists the vast majority has backed his road map to glory, every step of the way.
‘At the end of the day, there are lots of good people in Waterford who have supported what we have tried to do. I think we are like the Waterford people in that we have been resilient and true to our principles and we are together. I don’t think anyone could doubt the togetherness of the panel.
‘Our team and management, chemistry is good between us, and if people in Waterford see that, they react to it, rather than any flair or exuberance debate.’
McGrath faces his defining moment as Waterford manager, 25 years after appearing in an All-Ireland minor final at just 16. He played at under 18 level for three years, captaining the team in 1994 with his current selector Dan Shanahan one of his team-mates.
He admits himself that there was a lot of expectation on his shoulders. But his senior career was over at 23, curtailed by back problems. He had been restricted to just two senior Championship appearances for Waterford.
Reflecting on his truncated county career in the Granville Hotel 12 days ago, where he gladly talked to the various media for over four hours, McGrath conceded that he has channelled the frustrations of his own playing career into his management and coaching style.
‘I was one of those players that a
lot was expected of,’ McGrath accepts. ‘I was a county minor when I was 15. I look at what Patrick Curran or Stephen Bennett has to go through or what Joe Canning had to go through, in terms of managing all that expectancy.
‘I didn’t manage it as well as those lads have managed it in terms of coming through. But I was always one even when I wasn’t involved in the senior team, I would have watched how things were done in the senior set-up, and if something had gone wrong, I would say would I allow that to happen again. Or you would watch things and wonder how you could bring things forward if you got the chance.’
Within a year of leaving the Waterford senior panel, McGrath had taken the Féile U14 side at his De La Salle club to an All-Ireland Division 2 title (current Waterford captain Kevin Moran was part of that team). That was the first small step on the journey that has led him to Croke Park.
The following year, he got a job at De La Salle College, whom he managed to their first Harty Cup in 2007 and then again in 2008 – a side that included Noel Connors, the Mahonys and Barry Coughlan, all of whom will line out in Croker this afternoon.
And if June 18 was one of the low points, leading Waterford to their first Championship win over Kilkenny was a high, one that gave them the impetus for the team to move towards this point.
‘There was definitely an initial boost, and it acted as a catalyst for the training being lifted. But the overall sense within 72 hours was the next task. I know it is boring to say it but that is the reality of it. It was Wexford. The negative jibes became it would be worth nothing if we don’t beat Wexford.
‘What we said as a management team, we didn’t want to hear anyone within the group saying that this [beating Kilkenny] counts for nothing if we don’t beat Wexford. This was the outside perception that it will count for nothing.
‘We just said that it will be a memory that will last forever. Beating Kilkenny after 58 years and it is something we will look back on with pride and everything. We didn’t allow ourselves to say it will count for nothing. We speak a lot about making memories, as a group. And that was a memory that will last forever.’
But that memory will pale in comparison if McGrath’s long and winding journey ends up in ultimate glory just after 5pm this evening.
A lot was expected of me back when I was a player