Choosing to be WINNERS
Waterford and Galway line up in today’s final because both ensured they got the best out of themselves
TALK of empires is abroad. Fear of blue rule stalks the shires. Dublin’s excellence is undeniable, as is the depth of their resources, and it was interesting to read some commentators worth heeding urge a reopening of the discussion about splitting the county in two.
This is a suggestion that has infuriated Dublin supporters for years, but the advantages accruing to one unit within an organisation structured on a county basis that can call upon a quarter of the country’s population are obvious.
The frustration of Dublin fans is understandable, too. They see the suggested division as a punishment for improving and a handicap helping other counties, in particular Leinster neighbours Kildare and Meath, who have not marshalled their own extensive resources as judiciously.
And counties do have to help themselves, as the hurling final
OOF all the vacancies in football management at this time, the gap in Donegal is one of the most relevant to the future of the game.
The past week exposed the illusion of football’s big four. There is Dublin, then there is Mayo, and then come the rest. Donegal are, after Kerry, and with respect to Kildare, the most likely county to emerge and enter elite contention.
The retirement of Karl Lacey breaks another link with 2012, but talent remains. Appointing the right man to succeed Rory Gallagher is critical.
today illustrates.
A decade ago, Kilkenny looked untouchable. They had the best manager ever to stand on a GAA sideline, a generation of players the likes of which the game had never seen, and all within a county which only seriously concerned itself with one code.
Tipperary prevented them winning five in a row in 2010, but Kilkenny rebounded to take four of the next five Championships.
Age had its unanswerable say, though, and it was Tipperary who took advantage 12 months ago. But Galway and Waterford were by then deep into programmes of renewal.
And that is why it is their teams that march behind the Artane Band in Croke Park this afternoon. They are ready. They have maximised their potential, and in a summer where Kilkenny’s grip was finally, decisively loosened, they helped themselves.
Getting to this final presented more difficulties on the pitch than off it, for both counties. Just over four years ago, after he had initially shown an interest in staying on as Waterford manager, Michael Ryan left.
His two-year term was up but he was enthusiastic about extending it. However, the players wanted change.
The inevitable ballyhoo ensued, but a players’ meeting that saw a reported two-thirds of the squad vote for a new man in charge, decided matters.
Derek McGrath was subsequently appointed, and despite the exhaustively aired misgivings of the hurling establishment, he has worked within his resources to make Waterford good enough to reach final day for the first time in nine years.
It is coming up on two years since the Galway players took the decision their Waterford counterparts made in 2013. Their circumstances were more challenging because Anthony Cunningham had brought the county to an All-Ireland final in 2015.
It was the second appearance of his four seasons in charge, but weeks later the players made their preference for change clear. There followed a stand-off that lasted weeks, including a failed mediation attempt, before a players’ meeting in mid-November was asked the question, ‘Do you have confidence in the current management?’
Twenty-six of them answered no. Those numbers were a powerful rebuke to the claim that Cunningham was the victim of a heave led by only a small number of the county’s hurlers.
In a statement announcing his departure, Cunningham talked of a ‘kangaroo court’ decision, influenced by players ‘motivated by a desire to unjustly extend their lifespan as inter-county players’.
The bitterness lingered, with a squad who had failed in two final appearances obvious targets for the charge that they were trying to pass their own failings off on management.
They were flayed with criticism for much of that winter, but kept quiet and waited for a replacement. Micheál Donoghue was appointed shortly before Christmas of 2015. One of his selectors, Noel Larkin, remembered taking a call from Donoghue on St Stephen’s Day, scoping his interest in becoming involved.
By the following August, they were running Tipperary to a point in an All-Ireland semi-final and at the end of this year’s League, they vaporised the champions in the Division 1 final.
Their story has been one of hard work and improvement, facilitated by management with definite ideas of how to compete for the most important honours in the modern game.
This is not a manifesto for heaves by players. Rather, it is acknowledgment of two groups that wanted so badly to get better they were willing to endure the vituperation that attends any instance of alleged player power.
It is, too, a reminder that it is the responsibility of every county to get the best from themselves. It mightn’t be enough to stop a ravenous footballing empire emerging within Dublin.
Yet it is an attitude that explains why Waterford and Galway are in Croke Park on hurling’s biggest day.