MUNSTER SHC SEMI-FINAL: IAN O'RIORDANhears how Ken McGrath has no regrets about his decision to retire from the Waterford set-up
SOMETIME AROUND noon on Sunday the Waterford team bus will leave Walsh Park and head for Thurles, in ample time for the 4pm start to their Munster hurling semi-final against Limerick. Ken McGrath will already be on the same road, packed into the Mount Sion club bus.
For the first time in 15 successive summers, and after 51 championship appearances, McGrath isn’t part of the Waterford panel, and even if the full reality of that won’t hit him until Sunday afternoon inside Semple Stadium, he has no regrets about his decision in March to retire from intercounty hurling. At age 33, with four Munster titles and three All Stars, why should he?
“I gave it 15 years, and gave it everything in those 15 years,” he says, “and I still feel it was the right thing to do. Over the last couple of years it was one injury after another, and that made it harder to nail down a place on the team. You have to have the proper bite for it as well. And mine was gone. I’d had enough of it.
“And I suppose the doubts were creeping in the last few years. I couldn’t get a decent run at it. Some weeks I could train hard but then couldn’t train at all for a week or two after. It was hard to build up the confidence, not getting the full run in games either. I think I was lucky enough to even last to age 33. I’ve been playing since 1995, which really is a different era altogether. But I can’t do anything about it. There’s not much cartilage left in either knee. I’m wearing runners to club training now.”
It’s somewhat ironic then that when McGrath sits down to talk about Waterford’s prospects on Sunday he’s nursing a broken thumb and several stitches across the side of his head.
“Nothing new for me, is it? I’m still picking them up! The first championship match with the club I got five stitches on the face, and the next match I broke my thumb. I’m still enjoying playing with the club, but I don’t miss the county scene, and that’s being honest.
“Just last week I was dropping some boots up from the sports shop to the Waterford training, and the speed they were going at. I was happy enough to be watching. If I’d nailed down a place over the last couple of years I might have stayed tipping away. But I couldn’t even nail down what area of the field I should be in.
“And I’m not the easiest person to live with in that scenario. Even last year, even though we won the Munster final, I was devastated, because for 15 years I was always involved in those big games.
“Sitting in the stands, even at the start of extra time, I was sick, really, not being out there. I don’t think I could have done that to myself for another year.”
There are still some suspicions that McGrath was partly pushed into retirement by manager Davy Fitzgerald, especially after Dan Shanahan said as much about his own retirement last August – and after McGrath himself last summer questioned some of the “negative” tactics Fitzgerald.
“Everyone knows what I said last year, and I still back that up,” he says. “But in all fairness Davy gave me every chance this year. He’s trying to build a new team as well. I have to be honest as well. I wasn’t producing, and wasn’t a patch on where I was a few years ago. But I’ll still go to the games, and shout for the team. No one has to look at me and wonder am I still up for Waterford.
“There are some great young lads coming through and they’re full of confidence. A good start on Sunday would give them great confidence for the rest of the summer. But of course you’d have to be worried about Limerick. Like the 2007 All-Ireland semi-final when we were heavy favourites, and they beat us well.
“We never get it easy against Limerick but I still think it’s a game our lads should be winning. If they’ve any ambitions at all about winning the All-Ireland they’d want to be beating Limerick in the first round, and if they do get a good run in Munster they can be very dangerous.”
It’s hard to fathom how a player who made his debut in the 1996 Munster semi-final against Tipperary is adjusting to his new life outside of championship hurling, but McGrath reckons he’s definitely more relaxed, and doesn’t miss the pressure that appeared to be creeping into his game over the last few years.
“For years I went out and played games without even thinking about it, big games in Croke Park or Thurles, and it wouldn’t bother me an inch. Then the last couple of years I’d be worrying too much about those games, even league games, and then you know something is wrong. The game has changed that bit as well.
“Before it was more again reading the game, now it’s more about holding possession, and I suppose I just couldn’t get near the ball. That got me thinking as well my time might be up.
“Now I can do a few things you just can’t do as an intercounty hurler. Like we had a bonding session with the club for the Champions League final. I even went to Punchestown races this year, and something like that was never in the equation before. I’ve two young kids, and the sports shop down in Waterford, and that’s enough to keep me busy.
“But I’ve heard so much about this famous bus that leaves from Mount Sion each year. The lads have been on to me for years about this thing. So I’ll have to see what that’s like.”
