Waterford not keeping tricks up sleeve, insists McGrath

These are strange days in the Allianz Leagues when some managers have to defend their tactic of going flat out to win games, rather than the other way round. For Waterford hurling manager Derek McGrath, however, going flat out is the only tactic he knows.

Not long after Waterford beat Wexford by a single point, in their quarter-final, McGrath felt the need to say: “You read that some teams are keeping their power dry until the summer,” he said.

“We’re certainly not one of those. That’s it. That’s all we have. We hope to get better as we go on, and we’ll have to get better. But we’re not a team that is deliberately timing their run. We feel that the best possible way of success is to be all out all the time. That might be old-fashioned, but it’s certainly our approach.”

Landscape

Hurling may be a slightly different competitive landscape to football, but contrast McGrath’s tactics with that of Donegal football manager Rory Gallagher, who after last Sunday’s 10-point semi-final defeat to Dublin, admitted his team hadn’t trained all week, other than a “light kick-about and a stretch”.

For McGrath the next flat-out effort for the defending league champions is Sunday’s semi-final against Limerick at Semple Stadium but, looking aheadto the summer, Waterford are being talked about as potential All-Ireland winners.

McGrath, though, is well versed in the more popular tactic of playing down expectations: “To give you a practical example, in the run-up to the Wexford game in Wexford Park, the general talk in Waterford was ‘banana skin’. For me, that was way off the mark and certainly not how we saw it as a group.

“And I read one headline that said ‘Waterford in a different league to Wexford’. Whilst it was true literally, the chasm isn’t as big as people think on any given day. Even in the aftermath, when we were meeting people, we were told ‘ah, you didn’t play well’ and ‘you should be beating Wexford’, but that is not what you want to hear.

“There’s nothing between us and Wexford, particularly a Wexford team who were obviously motivated coming off the back of stories in the county the week before the game. I know how hard Liam Dunne works in the job and Wexford have a lot of ability. It’s only a year and a half ago that Wexford put us to the sword in Nowlan Park, having already beaten Clare, the All-Ireland champions.”

Damning statistic

McGrath only needs to point to one quite damning statistic regarding Waterford’s progress to Sunday’s semi-final: in their six games to date, they’ve only scored one goal (against Tipperary). Limerick, albeit in Division One B, have scored 12 goals (including six against Laois); looking at the other semi-finalists, Kilkenny have scored 10 goals, and Clare eight.

“Well, I won’t say it’s a damn stat,” said McGrath, “but it’s not one we want to have associated with us. What we’re trying to manage now is the talk about it, that it doesn’t become ingrained in our approach. We love to hit the net the same as any other team, but we’re trying to get the balance right so that while being conscious of it, it doesn’t become a burdening factor.

“We’re happy to win games in whatever manner is possible. We’re working to hit the net but we’re not going to promise any radical change in meeting that end. It’s like if you say to guys before matches ‘don’t give away frees’ and then there is a tendency not to tackle then. We wouldn’t be happy with it [the lack of goals] but we’re not stressing it too much in the group. It’s about being as positive as we can.”

One of the universally positive comments about Waterford’s run to the semi-finals has been the physicality of their players, especially the younger ones, although according to McGrath that’s hasn’t been a deliberate tactic.

“To me, it’s natural growth spurts for the likes of Austin [Gleeson], Patrick Curran and Shane Bennett. That’s not talking away from our strength and conditioning team, but the boys are growing as much as anything else. Austin, in the aftermath of the Kilkenny game, would have remarked that he needed to get stronger. I just think the mind and what’s in your chest dictates how strong you are.

We haven’t put any over-emphasis on one area over another. It’s a real combination of a good strength and conditioning programme, but as much as anything else, it’s natural growth spurts for a lot of these lads.”