When the manner of defeat matters

This post will contain no consolation for Ballygunner. In fact, it might make them feel worse. To come from ten points down two-thirds of the way through a match to draw level only to have it slip away from you right at the end is utterly heartbreaking, especially when you factor in how close Newtownshandrum were to playing for over fifty minutes with only fourteen men after Philip Noonan’s (ahem) wild pull on Andy Maloney was only judged to be worthy of a yellow card.

But for those of us for whom the fate of Waterford hurling is the primary concern, there was some solace in the way Ballygunner stood tall when it looked like they were about to be massacred. The constant drip-drip about how Waterford constantly bottle it when it matters does begin to wear everyone in the county down, burrowing its way under the collective skin and resurfacing when, well, it matters. Newtownshandrum’s greater experience probably proved telling in the end, but no one can accuse Ballygunner, and by extension Waterford, of lacking courage.

Don’t Come Home Too Soon

Hard to know what to make of Ballygunner’s laboured win over Cratloe in the Munster semi-final yesterday in Walsh Park. It’s one of the truisms of the GAA that clubs that win the county title for the first time in years / ever are vulnerable when they head into the provincial championships, what with having to wade their way through oceans of celebratory beer and chunder from the previous week. This would certainly cast Ballygunner’s floundering in a bad light, unless you wonder whether it’s a truism that is supported by evidence. De La Salle were in the same boat last year and went down and bearded Sarsfields in their own den, so it’s certainly not an iron rule.

For all of that, you’d really hope Ballygunner’s experience at this level and home advantage would have stood for more. Five points clear with two minutes of normal time left, closing it out shouldn’t have been as fraught as it was. It was unconvincing and you fear that yet again we have a Waterford team who don’t really believe they can go all the way, an attitude that Newtownshandrum will drive a coach-and-four through. At least Ballygunner will get the chance to prove me wrong.

Remember the Fraher 15!

An early chance for revenge in the Munster Under-21 final as Waterford draw Clare in the 2010 senior Munster championship. Bring it on! On a less flippant note (after all, you wouldn’t have to look far to find something needing ‘avenging’ with the other three counties) for the second year running the draw has been sweet to Waterford as Cork and Tipperary are paired in the other half of the draw. Clare will be quite pleased too. As if that wasn’t enough, we’re in the soft half of the draw in the football too with the All-Ireland champions, the Munster champions and the Division Three champions all on the other side of things.  Well done Jimmy O’Gorman on a draw well rigged done.

The politics of envy

It’s that time of year again – deciding who we would least hate to see winning the Liam McCarthy Cup. For years, it was a simple task to parse my desires regarding the destination of the All-Ireland. Waterford would go out with barely a whimper, so allegiances would swiftly switch to Cork. After that would come the Munster champions, which would usually mean Tipperary – at this stage Tipp would have been the famine-struck losers rather than the Hell’s Kitchen ogres of yore, so it was easy to run up the Munster flag of convenience. Then it would be anyone but Galway.

Simpler times, because then Waterford became competitive which complicated the overall All-Ireland picture. This would be best illustrated by the crushing nature of the defeat to Clare in 1998 which meant that it would be anyone but the Banner boyz for the best part of a decade – I’m happy to report that my gut reaction to being told of their victory in the Under-21 semi-final was one of delight – and each year would present a new set of slights with which to get wound up. This was best illustrated in 2007, when we had the first Come on the Déise edition of this annual game. Despite not feeling any inherent animosity towards Limerick, and no resentment at the manner in which they scuppered our own All-Ireland dreams, I still couldn’t bring myself to root for David over Goliath.

Last year saw a hiatus in this particular routine but it’s back for 2009, and the question is: Kilkenny or Tipperary? The unique selling point of last year’s final was Waterford’s presence in it. This year it’s Kilkenny’s quest for four All-Ireland’s in a row, the first time since Cork in 1944 that a team in the final are chasing that target. On balance, I’d rather see this happen than not happen. While having one team dominate a sport is generally seen as being malign, there is some logic to the school of thought that revels in the presence of excellence. Plenty of people root for Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. In addition, to see Kilkenny crush all before them would make Waterford’s shortcomings in recent years feel less acute – we would all be labouring under the burden of toppling a team that, with Cork having not won Munster in 1941,  could objectively claim to be the best of all time.

Then there’s Tipperary fans, or more specifically the yahoos who drunkenly accosted me after this year’s Munster final to slobber their appreciation that we had shown up but yerra what chance could ye have being from Waterford. The famine years may have put manners on Tipperary fans at the time but the sense of entitlement didn’t take long in reasserting itself. Perhaps one shouldn’t be too hard on an entire county based on the behaviour of a couple of morons – they were magnificence itself when we won the Munster title in 2002 – but when looking for reasons to split the difference between the two on Sunday, I can think of worse reasons than having that pair being brought down a peg or three.

Still, having put forward the contrary argument the time has come to admit to wanting Tipp to win on Sunday, and this is why: the need to puncture Kilkenny’s veneer of invincibility. When Cork were chasing three-in-a-row in 2006, it seemed nothing could knock them out of their stride. Roy Keane had the chutzpah to encourage them to think of five-in-a-row, the kind of talk that if uttered by the likes of Mick McCarthy would be ridiculed by Roy’s acolytes as being presumptuous. But they were knocked out of their stride, and to an extent that they haven’t been able to summon up the rage for another proper tilt at the title since. If Kilkenny win on Sunday, you can be sure all and sundry will be back in training at the first opportunity to try for something that no senior team has ever accomplished in either hurling or football. If they lose, more than a few people will lose the will to try and rebuild the x-in-a-row house again from scratch.  It might be too much to ask for Brian Cody to be one of those people, but you can always hope.

And it is with that hope in my heart that I will be cheering for Tipperary on Sunday.

Counties That I Don’t Hate – Down

(No 2 in a series of 2)

Picture it. Waterford. 1991. Since we had won our first ever title in 1929, we had managed to win something – anything – in every decade. Until the 1980’s, that is, when we had not only won nothing but had plumbed the depths of Division Three hurling and been massacred in our three Munster final appearances. We’d even had the privilege of watching the team implode live on national television in the 1989 final. Not a good time to be following the Déise.

The 80’s had been a grim time for the GAA. An All-Ireland hurling semi-final had been attended by a mere nine thousand souls (Galway – Cork in 1985) and the Ulster and Connacht football championships were utterly bankrupt – the champions of those provinces had not beaten a team from Leinster or Munster since Galway in 1973. It’s hard to sustain interest in a sport when there is so little competition among all teams in general and from your own in particular. Add in the thrill of Italia ‘90, and people were asking in all seriousness where the GAA was to go from here.

The first step in the rehabilitation of the GAA came from Meath, or specifically the sensational clash between Meath and Dublin in the 1991 Leinster championship that captured the imagination of a nation. It was so all-consuming that even my mother sat down to watch the fourth and decisive match. I had developed a loathing of the Royal County in the preceding years, fuelled by paternal links with Cork and the cast of, er, characters that populated Sean Boylan’s team. Every match you’d watch hoping they’d trip up, every time they’d sail close to the wind, and every time they’d squeeze through. They were behind for most of the semi-final against Roscommon but with a mixture of grit, nerve and (I can admit this nearly 20 years on) talent, they were ahead at the finish. Another failure from the Connacht crew. It was galling, and all the more compelling for that.

Meanwhile in the other half of the draw, Kerry had sucker-punched a previously dominant Cork to come out of Munster. No one was thinking they were world beaters – the hiding they had taken in the 1990 final and the less-than-stellar manner in which they had disposed of Limerick saw to that – but they were still Kerry, right? Yes, they were and while Down had a cute record of never having lost to Kerry in the championship, they were still from Ulster and thus were going to fill their appointed role as the Munster team’s bitch. Even leading for much of the game did not change that. Had Tyrone not done the same in 1986?

Then it happened. It may not have played out exactly as I remember it, but the sentiment is what matters. A slick Down move saw Peter Withnall put clear through on Charlie Nelligan and he smashed the ball to the net with aplomb. Suddenly Down were in a winning position and they never faltered in the remaining time, belief that they would do it coursing through every action. Watching it at home, I was gobsmacked. A minnow could put it up to one of the kingpins of Gaelic games and succeed.

Five weeks later Down were back in Croke Park against the evil Meed, and it was clear they meant business. The sea of red and black that rippled across Hill 16 was utterly inspirational, one Tricolour-wielding fool only slightly marring the beauty. Down duly shot down Meath, even withstanding one of those famous zombie-like comebacks. For the first time in my lifetime, a team who had no expectation at the start of the year to winning the All-Ireland had won the All-Ireland.

A year later another county would unexpectedly taste success.  I genuinely don’t think this is a coincidence. Could Donegal and Derry have won Sam Maguire if Down had not shown them the way? And why should such a transmission of belief stop at the Ulster border? Since then, I’ve always had a soft spot for Down. They showed the rest of the GAA world that it could be done. And more importantly, they showed me that it could be done, something has sustained me to this day.

Nothing was going to give or everything was going to give

The meeja loves looking at things past for titbits about current events, and there was plenty to chew over about last night’s Under-21 final between Waterford and Clare in Dungarvan. Clare’s appalling 0 for 12 record in Munster finals stood in curious contrast to Waterford’s, whose three wins in the competition came at the expense of the Banner. Normally lazy hacks bang on about how ”something has to give”, but last night it was all or nothing.

And in the end, it was all. I’m not saying for one second that the Waterford team didn’t care, but there was no denying that once Clare got in sight of the finishing line there was only going to be one winner. We would have been able to observe the phenomenon of a team feeling liberated by the prospect of ending the pain that had afflicted previous generations of their county men when we won the 2002 Munster championship. I wrote then how “the Waterford team must have been a terrifying sight. Nostrils flared, eyes bulging, sweating adrenalin, they steamed after every ball as if their lives depended upon it”, and you could see echoes of that in Clare last night. Ger Loughnane lost to Waterford in 1974 as a player and 1992 as a manager at this stage of the competition, so it must have been inspirational to the Clare team to have succeeded where so many of their illustrious predecessors had come up short.

Hard to know what to make of it for Waterford i.e. I don ‘t know enough about the team to make in informed judgement. Obviously it’s disappointing they couldn’t close out the deal after that thumping win over Tipperary, but there’s no shame in losing a tight game against an inspired team. There’s not much point in waiting to see how Clare do to gauge how good we were – they could be a brilliant team yet still lose to Galway. Whatever happens now, it’s been a great year at underage level.

Two last observations, or one with a sting in the tail. It was good to be able to feel no animosity towards Clare on the basis that they were Clare. The wounds of 1998 have well and truly healed. So it has nothing to do with being a bitch when I note that despite the momentous nature of their victory, nobody in Clare seemed bothered updating the Wikipedia page, that task falling to Pmunited, a contributer “living in the US, but born in Ireland”. And there was me thinking Ennis was Ireland’s information town . . . okay, that was rather bitchy. Well done to the Banner.

How do Nemeton do it?

Tonight the Munster Under-21 final will be broadcast live on TG4. It’s not exactly a trek to Fraher Field to cover the match for Nemeton from their base in An Rinn, but there doesn’t seem to be any part of the country in to which their reach does not extend to cover live sport. They are even showing eleven League of Ireland matches. So why is it that big daddy up in Montrose seems incapable of such coverage, to the extent that when Bohemians played Red Bull Salzburg in the Champions League qualifiers they felt the need to play the beal bocht to justify not showing it? 

The perverse thing is that coverage of the big matches is so all pervasive these days that it probably harms attendances – the GAA were likely relieved to get a round-ish figure of 30,000 at the match last Sunday – yet for all-ticket affairs like tonight’s match in Dungarvan we have to rely on an independent broadcaster from beyond the Pale. It all comes from the licence fee eventually, but if Nemeton didn’t exist would they be invented?

The lowdown on the Under-21’s

Giveitfong has given Clare folk some insight into the Waterford Under-21’s in a post on AFR. Some of us (ahem) might find it informative too:

For the benefit of Clare supporters. The Waterford goalkeeper Adrian Power is the senior sub goalie and many people believe he should be on the first team due to his sometimes unbelievable shot stopping abilities and his excellent puckouts, although he is also inclined to do crazy things [after Cider and Ray Barry, clearly a grand Waterford tradition]. All three full backs are on the senior panel with Noel Connors in the first team. Full back Shane Fives was excellent against Tipperary while the other corner back Jerome Maher was possibly even better. This line’s performance was a key factor in the defeat of Tipp.

The half back line is the same as that which won De La Salle their first All-Ireland colleges title in 2007. Philip Mahony is also on the minor team and is the best hurler of the three. Stephen Daniels had a shaky enough first half against Tipp but was super in the second half: he is not physically big and relies on hurling and positioning. I though the other wing back David O’Sullivan was weak enough against Tipp.

The two big Abbeyside men who started against Tipp were both very poor, but only one of them – Seán O’Hare – was taken off, and his replacement Shane Walsh probably played the key role in turning the game Waterford’s way. I think the occasion got to O’Hare who is a better hurler than he looked that night, but I can’t for the life of me say what John Gorman is doing on the team (well, I do have an opinion but can’t express it here).

All six Waterford forwards are on the senior panel. Paul Murray is usually a defender but put in a great hour against Tipp and landed three points. Thomas Connors, brother of Noel, had a whale of a second half – strong and aggressive and can take a score. Maurice Shanahan is unreal – a much better hurler than Dan, with a bit of his father’s devil in him, and an excellent freetaker. Shane Casey has great pace and skill and also very good vision – did really well both a full forward and on the wing against Tipp. Thomas Ryan is small in stature but has great pace and skill and an eye for a goal (got two against Tipp). Brian O’Sullivan is very skillful but was the least impressive of the forwards against Tipp, but I think from his club form that he is capable of better.

Waterford played with a great combination of skill, commitment and discipline against Tipp and if they repeat that they will be hard to beat. Also 3-21 was a big score to get in a 60-minute match against a team with Tipp’s credentials.

Dungarvan is a big pitch and would always have been regarded as one of the best hurling pitches in Ireland. However, whatever they did with the drainage when they built the stand in the early 1990s it was never the same afterwards. They are after having a couple of gos at fixing the problem and I must say that for the semi-final it looked in the best shape I have seen it in 20 years.

Most people travelling to this game from Clare will probably come through Tipperary, Cahir and Clonmel. There are three roundabouts in a row approaching Clonmel from the Cahir side and I don’ think any one of them as a signpost for Dungarvan. The best advice is to take the exit at around one/two o’clock (looking at the roundabout facing you as a clock) i.e. the one after the exit for Waterford. This should bring you up to traffic lights (petrol station on the left hand side) where you turn right (over the river Suir) for Dungarvan, turn right at the roundabout at the far side of the river (no advance sign for Dungarvan here either) and then turn left about half a mile further on. Very picturesque road between the Comeragh and Knockmealdown mountains but rather twisty in places.

Just west of Dungarvan the road meets up with the N72 from Killarney/Lismore (at the Master McGrath monument) and just beyond this junction there is another junction with the road to Dungarvan off to the right and the road to Waterford to the left. You can approach Fraher Field by either road. Taking the Waterford road, take the next right turn and this brings you to the ground along the river Colligan. I believe there is parking at the Cattle Mart just before the ground. This might be the best bet for people coming late.

If you take the road into Dungarvan, turn left at the first roundabout (petrol station on the right) and the ground is to the left of the second next roundabout you meet. However, the traffic situation in this area will be dire. If coming early, go straight on at the first roundabout which brings you into the town square – there are several car parks in the vicinity of the square, which is about ten minutes walk from the ground. Recommended pubs include the Local, the Lady Belle and Paddy Foleys (all in one corner of the Square) and the Moorings and the Anchor on the Quay. The Park Hotel is next to the ground and is also a great meeting place for games.

Welcome to the Déise and enjoy everything about your visit except the match result!

Enough with the spooky parallels

If we’re going to think positive about how similar the results at Minor and Under-21 have been so far with events in 1992, then it’s only fair to note the yang of the Intermediate team’s loss to Cork tonight in the Munster final: 5-24 to 3-9 has a horrifying symmetry with . . . no, I can’t say it! Move along, nothing to see here . . .

Let’s party like it’s 1992

The Waterford Under-21’s kept the show on the road with a thumping win over Tipperary in Dungarvan on Thursday. The parallels with 1992 are spooky; the Minors beat Tipperary back then and the Under-21’s played Clare in the Munster decider. Let’s hope these parallels carry through. And surely Maurice Shanahan has to get a chance at Senior level now?

Final to be played Wednesday 29 July, venue TBC.