Enjoying the hype and living for the moment

GAA ALL-IRELAND SHC FINAL KILKENNY v WATERFORD: Seán Moranfinds Ken McGrath a willing subject and only too delighted to put up with an inquisitive scribe on the night that was in it.

KEN McGRATH has been the central tableau in so many of Waterford's adventures over the past 10 years or so that it's almost incongruous to find him sitting behind a table towards the end of the team's All-Ireland media night.

By now he's played everywhere except in goal, having been asked by new manager David Fitzgerald earlier in the championship temporarily to vacate his optimum positioning at centre back to patrol the square in an effort to try to stem the flow of goals that sometimes courses through the full-back line.

Finally this year he and his team have reached the All-Ireland stage, which many were beginning to regret that he'd never get a chance to grace. With that opportunity comes a variety of unfamiliar chores, like open nights for supporters - and this.

"I wouldn't call it a chore," he says. "It's long enough we're waiting for press nights and we're waiting for All-Ireland for a long time, so this is part of the build-up to it. I know the lads are enjoying it, the hype and the press night. It's long enough we're waiting for it."

After the experiment of playing at full back ended before the semi-final win over Tipperary, McGrath was just as pleased. It had been a qualified success in that he coped well enough with the demands, but his positional instincts were always on trial and his expansive, ball-playing nature was missed farther out the field.

"Look, Davy came in and he tried something with me at full-back. I had no problem with it. Obviously, I think centre-back would suit me better. We got through three games and I thought I did okay at full-back, the three lads I actually marked didn't score.

"You're curtailed a small bit. It's a very specialised position in there, and I think you have to be born a full-back nearly! It's tough enough, and you need definitely the full league in there to get to grips with it. You have to stand in front of the goal and watch the square more, you can't go for the ball as much as you'd like.

"The good full-backs? Your first thought nearly has to be negative. Mine was probably trying to get to the ball too much, and thankfully he moved me out and I enjoyed the last day."

That defeat of Tipperary wasn't in itself a breakthrough - being Waterford's fourth in five championship meetings with their neighbours - but the context, an All-Ireland semi-final, was new. He says winning felt better than winning the Munster title: "It did, it did. I'd say it dwarfed Munster by five or six times, to be honest."

This wasn't a typical run-in for the county. The disruption caused by the early defeat to Clare and the management upheaval sent Waterford down the outside track.

This involved narrow victories over Offaly and Wexford teams that Sunday's opponents Kilkenny had already brushed aside, but those matches were used by Fitzgerald to devise and implement the new style in which he wanted the team to play.

It's been a more settled approach and less prone to mood swings. Has the more structured game militated against their ability to reach the highs of previous years?

"We have to up it probably 20 or 30 per cent from the Tipperary game. And we know that. But we have to still try and stick to what we're trying to do this year, which is a bit of a plan and a bit of guidance from Davy. It's not as free-flowing as other years, but so far it's working for us and we have to up our performance, but I think we're well capable of doing that.

"I suppose our free-flowing style didn't work - we never got to a final before. So the tactics we're using at the moment probably don't allow us as much as that, but some of our hurling is after being fairly decent and some of our patches against Tipp, I think, were as good as at any stage last year."

As well as structuring Waterford's game, Fitzgerald has called a halt to the anarchic switching of forwards and concentrated on trying to create space and opportunities for a full-forward line that has thrived on the new dispensation, with John Mullane enjoying his best form in a couple of seasons, Eoin Kelly in the frame for Hurler of the Year and McGrath's brother Eoin building on last season when the effectiveness of his interventions from the replacements' bench earned him an All Star nomination.

More disciplined use of possession has also been prioritised.

"The way the team plays," according to Ken McGrath, "we're trying to give the right ball probably and do the right things with the ball. Davy is after being there as a player, being in All-Ireland finals and winning two of them; it's our first final to even get to, so Davy knows what the whole experience is and doing things under pressure.

"Other years, we always did things to a certain degree well, but at times we might take the wrong option. And hopefully now we're trying to do the right options under pressure and in the big games, and in the semi-final I thought the decision-making was very good, especially in the last five-six minutes when the game was there in the melting pot."

Has that greater emphasis on thoughtful distribution had an impact on his own tendency to drive, optimistically, long balls up the field in favour of more considered striking?

"I suppose I missed so many scores in Croke Park last year I was slated for it, you know. But at times when you're centre-back and you're going forward, if you've a chance of a pop at goal - I still would.

"But it's just the lads are playing so well in the forward line, you might as well give them the ball . . . instead of having a 50-50 shot myself."

Ken McGrath

Age: 30

Club: Mount Sion

Honours: Munster SHC 2002, '04 '07, NHL 2007, Munster club 2002, Railway Cup 1997 '01, All Star 2002, '04 '07.