Crotty pushes charges to the limit

Noreen Walsh, Waterford centre back, the most media friendly Gaelic footballer in the country. None of this `I-won'ttalk-to-the-press-because-Ineed-to-focus-on-the-final' lark. In fact, she couldn't chat enough on Wednesday night at Belfield, where Waterford's Dublin-based players were holding their final training session before Sunday's All-Ireland Final against Monaghan.

"So we're confident, very, very confident. Or `quietly confident', as they say," she says. "That's great Noreen, thanks very much," I say after our 20 minute chat. And then, out of the darkness, comes a howl. "NOREEN WALSH? Are you just going to talk football all night or are you going to play any?". "Jesus Crotty - I'm talking to the press," she shouts back. "Go on, ask us another question," she whispers."Oh, right. Eh, what will you do on Saturday?"

"I don't know, go in to town maybe, buy a few studs and maybe buy new gloves." "Right, thanks very much," I say.

"I mean, I probably won't even wear them, but it will just pass the time, keep my mind off the match a bit." "Well, the best of luck."

"I'll probably wear my old studs, my old gloves and my old boots." Another howl. Crotty again. "NOREEN WALSH, you don't know THAT much about football, would ya feck off talking, get back over here and do some running."

"I've trained enough, I'm alright."

"Get BACK over here." So Walsh gets back over there and trains some more. At least `talking to the press' gave her a chance to catch her breath, a rare luxury in a Marie Crotty-run training session.

Crotty's a legend in Waterford women's football circles. This Sunday she should have been captaining the team in her fifth final, in search of her fifth All-Ireland winner's medal. But, back in March, she sustained the first serious injury of her career and a fortnight ago she finally conceded she would be a spectator on Sunday, instead of taking her place in the Waterford attack.

"I was just doing a bit of training, went up for a ball, came down, twisted the knee and it hasn't been right since. I was operated on two days after it happened, they took out a piece of cartilage and gave me six weeks to be back in action. So I played a match after six weeks but after about 30 minutes I was crippled again. That's the way it was all year, I'd come back and it would go again. I never actually gave up on it until two weeks ago - I was out jogging, it locked again and that was that."

Walsh describes the loss of Crotty as a "wicked blow to the team". "We knew we had a big job to do after last year (when they lost to Monaghan in the All-Ireland semi-final) - we voted her captain and then we lost her. Morale wise it was terrible, she's always the one everyone looks to because she's played so long. A wicked blow it was."

And few Waterford players felt Crotty's absence more than her Dublin-based team-mates - Walsh, Catriona Casey and Lorena Mooney - who she trained with at least twice a week. Walsh admits it was no coincidence that two of them, herself and Casey (who, between them, have eight All-Ireland winners' medals), lost their places in the team for the Munster final against Clare after a series of training sessions from which the injured Crotty was absent.

"Michael (Ryan, Waterford coach) just said `you're not playing well, you don't deserve your places - there are people on the bench who are fitter and are playing better, it's up to ye now'. So we had a lot of work to do because it's really hard training on your own. When there's just two or three people, it's so easy to doss.

"So we asked Crotty, straight out, would she come and give us a hand because we knew we were in trouble. She said right . . . but there were a few times then I was sorry I ever said anything to her." She's tough? "She's nearly tougher than Michael because she knows how hard to push a person, she's been through it and she knows how hard it's going to be out there on Sunday. Actually, she's as bad, if not worse, than Michael to train under." A gasping Lorena Mooney, a sub on Sunday, agrees. "Michael's tough yeah, but I'd nearly rate Crotty harder. Sometimes I feel I'm going to die. When there's only a couple of us you've nowhere to hide." But she seems quite a nice person? "Ah, looks can be deceiving." Takes no prisoners? "None," says Walsh. "You're saying `Crotty, I'm feckin' dying' and she says, `I don't care, who are you going to say that to on Sunday? Babe Larkin (the Monaghan captain) will be delighted to hear it'. But only for her our fitness levels would have been way down and we'd have been way behind the crowd at home."

Crotty came by her coaching methods honestly. Back in the early eighties, when women's football was in its infancy in Waterford, Michael Ryan came along and showed the players what was required if they were to start winning titles. "We had tried so many different trainers but they just gave up on us," says Crotty. "But then Michael came down and I think the first night he had 16 of us. He put us through an awful lot and he said `they'll never come back again' . . . but when he came back the following night there were 20 of us, so he thought `they're serious!"' Ryan took charge of the team in 1982; they won a Junior All-Ireland in '86 and, finally, in 1991 ended Kerry's 10-in-a-row dreams by beating them in the Munster final. They went on to win their first senior All-Ireland that year, retained it the following year and won two more in '94 and '95.

"Because he was willing to put the time in we said we would and without him I don't think Waterford would be where it is now. You need somebody totally focused and committed and he's been that way with us for over 15 years now.

"And I have to say Michael has been very good to me this year. He might ask me a question now and then, what would I think about different things and that made me feel I was still involved. I'll be okay Sunday, I'd told myself I wouldn't be playing so once they win it doesn't bother me. I've been playing my part by coaching the three girls in Dublin, just giving a bit of motivation and encouragement.

"Fitness is the one thing that won't beat them, they're fit alright - I take the three of them and do the best I can with them," she says. The collective groan from Walsh, Casey and Mooney is deafening. Crotty smiles. She knows she's done her job.