Griffin plotted for every eventuality

HE COMES to the bottom of the steps under the Cusack Stand festooned with hangers on. His face is illuminated from ear to ear. His fists are clenched in excitement. He is speaking in tongues. It seems a very long time since Wexford lost a league game to Meath. A long long time since a Wexford fan spat at Liam Griffin.

If hurling was to be saved it was going to need the hearts of passionate men like Ger Loughnane and Liam Griffin. In 1994 Griffin, with some reluctance, took on a job that nobody else had the guts to do. Manager of the Wexford hurling team. The press agent for terminal diseases gets to deliver more good news than the manager of the Wexford hurling team.

Yesterday Griffin was riding high on the shoulders of his countyfolk, his assumption into the ranks of the heroes already complete. Nobody deserves it more. Hurling has never been healthier. Wexford has never been happier.

His passionate heart conceals the computations of a thorough mind. Before Wexford played Offaly in this year's Leinster final several people in county Clare got phone calls from Liam Griffin.

What surprised the people in Clare was not so much that Griffin would call up for a scouting report about Offaly but that he knew so much already. Griffin was just covering all bases with the conscientious persistence which has become his hallmark.

To the outsider the hotelier from Rosslare has only the slightest pedigree. A father from Clare and two cousins who played with Wexford in the 1960s, one replacing Art Foley in goals when Foley emigrated to America, the other holding Jimmy Doyle scoreless in a memorable final.

Griffin's pedigree and moral authority comes from the years when he filled his car with youngsters and drove them to game after game. Weekends devoted to making sure that hurling stayed alive below the plimsole line. Those who knew him on the underage circuit speak of a sensitivity for young players which blends well with his motivational skills and the thoroughness of his preparations.

"Guts and determination is what won it," he said yesterday as he was still recovering his breath. That glib prescription needed expanding upon. Guts and determination extend to all things.

"We were going to show our guts and courage. We paraded the full way around the pitch. We stood to attention for the President. We did everything we were supposed to do. This is a hard, game. I'm sorry the sending off happened but these things happen. Eamonn deserved to go but I can understand why it happened. That's the way the game developed. It probably won it in the end.

That Wexford were settled was evident from the first minute of yesterday's game when Larry Murphy nonchalantly scooped up a loose ball in midfield, stuck it to his stick for 30 yards and popped it over the bar like a kid practising in the local field.

"Mental preparation is so important," said Griffin afterwards. "We talk about it. I remember going out to play a county final down in Clare with Newmarket and I was just 18 and everybody was roaring and screaming and saying `spit out your teeth there, hurl and let fly'. I thought to myself that I wasn't tuned into any of this. I was lying in bed awake at night worrying.

"So this year I thought of all the things. If a lad doesn't sleep what happens. If you're nervous what happens. If your stomach is sick what happens. We talked about everything. From food to diet to fitness to mental things. We did all that as well.

"We were determined to relax. Weren't going to be so tight jawed that we couldn't perform. We were determined to enjoy the day.

"We relaxed, we talked, we tried to rid ourselves of the idea that it was an event and look at it as just a game. I described it to them as an under 14 hurling final. Told them to take that attitude. Face up to the responsibilities. Turn the ceremonies to our advantage. Seven minutes to throw in. Enjoy them."

"We had planned for it if a man was off. If we had an extra man. If they had an extra man. We wrote it and rewrote it. What we would do if a back was sent off if a midfielder was sent off, if a forward was sent off. We wrote it down and then wrote it again."

Griffin's own happiest hurling days were spent in county Clare when he was a catering student in Shannon. He hurled with a powerful Newmarket side before sacrificing his potential to the exigencies of a career in hotels.

His father was a Clareman, brought to Rosslare by his job in the Gardai. Last September's scenes in Croke Park when Clare ended their own years of blight moved Griffin so much that he met with his players the following night in the Ferrycarrig Hotel and began impressing upon them that they could do the same.

The propagation of hurling and the extension of the brotherhood of the game are two matters which concern him greatly.

"Clare were an example for us," he said yesterday. "We can be an example to others. These two years have been wonderful to hurling."

Having been reared in the game, he is authoritative on the history of hurling. He can run his eve over the landscape of Wexford's past failures and point to where they took the wrong turning each time.

This weekend his team faced another crossroads when Sean Flood failed his fitness test. Griffin knew Flood's family history, knew what the setback would mean for Flood, knew that Sean Flood could play a huge part in motivating Wexford.

"Yeah, Sean spoke to the team. We were all moved. More, we were all in bits for a few minutes. It meant so much to us. Sean said `I'm all my life waiting for this now it's not going to happen'. He said that, said what hurling meant for him, and then he broke down. It meant a lot to all of us."

Griffin left nothing out. "I hate doing this," he says reluctantly as the subject is drawn from him but I was around Lady's Island last night.

There is pilgrimage season down there in Lady's Island where you have to go there so many times between now and the 8th of September. My mother and meself have been marching all week. My mother has 10 laps done, I've only five done, but I walked it last night and I felt peace and contentment. I said we are going to win this match. I'd looked at every aspect of this game. So I looked at that too. I felt good and calm then and felt we were going to win.

"I had my row with God. "We weren't there since 1968," I said and "they were there in 1973."

No argument there. We're entitled to it first. We prayed before we went out there today. I'm not some kind of latter day preacher or anything but I believe in those things. I don't want to come off a folksy, 50 treat me well when ye write this."

Treat me well when you write this. Griffin seldom lives just in the present tense. His brain switches into the future all the time.

John O'Connor, the Wexford defender, describes Griffin's motivational touchstone thus: "Next ball. Next ball. Next ball. Good or bad you can't change what has happened. Next ball."

Yesterday Griffin personified the best of his own philosophy. Cool head on an excited bench.

"I just kept saying `Liam stick with your job, don't lose your head. Work, work, work. Concentrate. At half time they came in and I spoke about the second half. I looked for 15 per cent more. If you are ever going to win an All Ireland now is the time for that 15 per cent."

He got everything he asked for. His team were tactically flawless. They snapped like terriers and crowded Limerick into submission.

On the steps of the Hogan Stand afterwards Griffin was a sight to behold, making his way inexorably up towards the platform hugging the life out of all and sundry. No player shirked away or shrugged him off. On the day he met his team for the first time Griffin promised them honesty and hard work. Yesterday they reaped the dividends.

Typically the game was scarcely ended, the cheers still echoing when Griffin was thinking about the future of Wexford hurling.

He spoke of the youngsters, about the need for the county to reap the dividend of yesterday's win. He smiled and said that hurling is rooted in Wexford again. When he grows old perhaps he will watch today's kids play in tomorrow's All Irelands. They'll wear purple and gold.

"That's what being from Wexford is all about for me.