Waterford book doesn't tell whole story for Mullane

GAVIN CUMMISKEYhears the Déise ace take issue with Damien Tiernan's tome on the county hurlers which he feels underestimated their dedication

VETERAN WATERFORD hurler John Mullane has strongly criticised the book written by RTÉ’s Damien Tiernan charting the successes but ultimately the failure of Waterford to win the All-Ireland in modern times.

"Well, you are after touching on a sore point there," said Mullane, at the recent championship launch hosted by sponsors Centra in Croke Park, when asked for his opinion on the book titled The Agony and the Ecstasy – The Real Story Behind Waterford Hurling, which features the 30-year-old three-time All Star on its front cover.

“I wasn’t in favour of the book from the start and I thought there was a lot of invalid information in it.

“I mean we were described as basically a crowd of pissheads, really.

“We wouldn’t of had the success if that was the case.”

The sore point for Mullane was the alleged social habits of a panel who gathered four Munster titles from 2002 to 2010, a national league title in 2007 and contested the 2008 All-Ireland final.

“It was a bad reflection on what really went on. I, for one, can really tell you I trained hard. All the lads trained hard. We were allowed enjoy ourselves and we did enjoy ourselves, no different from any other team.

“Some of the stuff written didn’t do us any justice.”

Justin McCarthy, who was removed by a player coup in 2008 to be replaced by Davy Fitzgerald, also came in for sustained criticism in Tiernan’s book, but Mullane remains adamant that anyone he has played under in the past 11 years as an inter-county hurler would support his assertion that nights out were not the root cause of failure to capture the All-Ireland title.

“Ask any of the present management, Davy, Justin even, or Gerald McCarthy, they’ll tell you how hard we trained over the last 10 years.

“For it to be described that we failed because we were having a couple of nights here and there . . . I could tell you now we trained so hard.

“When we were allowed let our hair down we did let our hair down but it was no different from any of the other inter-county teams in that regard.”

Mulllane believes the inspirational achievements of the previous generation – mentioning Ken McGrath, Paul Flynn and Dan Shanahan – has had a lot to do with the progress of current Waterford panellists like Noel Connors, Darragh Fives, Maurice Shanahan and Richie Foley.

In the same interview he spoke about the difficulties of maintaining his enjoyment at training sessions coupled with fears for the longevity of the next wave of inter-county hurlers.

“I’m after putting 11 years behind now but I just can’t see for the life of me how a young fella coming in now is going to push 11 years in a row at that level, you know, because the bar is being raised every year.

“And sometimes I do feel that some of the enjoyment is gone out of training because the body is being pushed so much.

“Sometimes when you go training you can be a bit flat and the enjoyment is gone out of it.

“Since I first started it is incredible how much of it has changed within training.”

Equally keen to praise the present work being done by Fitzgerald and the structures in place at underage and throughout Waterford college teams, Mullane admitted his days as a 70-minute hurler, or anyone’s for that matter, may be numbered.

“Davy and the management are after building a new team. A couple of players are gone but there is a new breed coming in.

“I feel Waterford are going in the right direction. I think hurling in Waterford at the present moment in time is absolutely flying; all the underage structures are right and we have got a very good minor team and under-21 team this year. It bodes well for the next five or six years.

“I suppose I’m not getting any younger either. I’m hitting the 30 mark. I don’t know where it will bring me.

“Whether I’ll be a 50-minute man, 60-minute or last the 70 minutes. All I can say is I will give it me all, whether that be 50 or 60 minutes.

“That’s the mentality Davy is after bringing into it. He wants players to give it their all for maybe 45, 50 minutes and we have a bench to call on, to throw in fellas.

“I think the game has gone that way. You look at the All-Ireland final last year. Tipperary absolutely killed themselves for 55 minutes and threw fellas off the bench to freshen things up. It is no longer a 15-man game; it is a 20-man game.”

Waterford’s opening championship match is against Limerick on Sunday, June 12th.