Waterford getting there step by step

Munster SFC Semi-final: Keith Duggantalks to Waterford coach John Kiely who has created a sense of cause out of the county's bleak situation

As far as John Kiely is concerned, there is nothing romantic about tomorrow's visit of All-Ireland champions Kerry to Dungarvan. The Munster semi-final match has a splash of Rocky Balboa heroism about it, with the loveable down-and-outs facing the glistening champions under the bright lights of television.

"The hype won't matter a damn to us," confirmed the Waterford manager on a blustery morning during the week. "We will be going out with the same attitude, that nobody cares about is, nobody knows about us and that nobody is expecting anything off us. The boys will play their own game."

Kiely has combined humour and defiance to make a success of what must be one of the toughest managerial posts on the GAA noticeboard. When he took over the senior team, his first task was to break a pattern of disillusionment so deeply ingrained that few players lasted on the intercounty team for more than a couple of seasons.

Whereas the county's established club teams like The Nire and Stradbally were capable of making an impression at national level, the county team had become something of a black hole. Waterford's first championship win in 19 years achieved two weeks ago against Páidí Ó Sé's callow Clare team was a stark reminder of how brutally little Waterford football players have had to play for over 20 years.

And the half-century anniversary of the famous 1957 championship victory over Kerry may provide a neat bookend to tomorrow's match but it also emphasises the isolated nature of Waterford's football bright spots. Kiely, though, has managed to create a sense of cause and solidarity out of the bleakness of Waterford's situation. His talent for working with limited materials was made evident in the junior All-Ireland titles Waterford won under his stewardship in 1999 and 2005. Those were no mean achievements.

The Cork team that Waterford beat contained current All-Star Ger Spillane along with the highly-rated goalkeeper Alan Quirke, John Hayes and Michael Prout. The 1999 title came against a tenacious Meath side. Coming after a 2003 Munster Under-21 final appearance, these were all small but vital signs of improvement. Kiely more or less demanded the senior job and found he was pushing an open door.

The stigma of failure, of being almost mentally locked into the role of being league and championship whipping boys, confronted Kiely from the beginning. Numbers at training were low, expectations lower still. In his first league year, Waterford just about cobbled a team together for the visit of Cavan and lost by 7-15 to 0-8.

"The Cavan lads were not being disrespectful but I suppose they were laughing among themselves a bit towards the end. It was one of those days when you just wanted the ground to open and swallow you up," Kiely says.

But by that summer's championship, they were organised enough to push Clare to the brink, exiting after Enda Coughlan produced a last-minute goal. When they regrouped, they set themselves a target of winning one league game. The big surprise was they achieved it against Cavan, who were ruling the roost in the division.

"I suppose we had learned to change our tactics a little by then," remembers selector Tom Condon. "Traditionally, Waterford would just line out conventionally and try and take on the opposing teams so that really clinical teams would clean up off our mistakes. We began to concentrate on our defence and tried to do what Tyrone have done so successfully over the years and Cavan just weren't expecting that kind of resilience from us. It was a great buzz and we kind of carried that into the league because we had achieved our ambition. The next step has to be consistency."

On the afternoon Waterford played Kerry in Killarney, word quickly went around the country that the aristocrats were in the midst of a minor scare. The teams were level at half-time and Waterford had a penalty to draw level. They eventually lost by eight points - a more respectable total than the eventual All-Ireland finalists Mayo managed.

Kiely has sufficient managerial presence and come-what-may pride to ensure his Waterford players do not feel any inferiority complex when it comes to playing Kerry. When he managed against Páidí Ó Sé two weeks ago, of course he was aware of this heavyweight reputation, a legendary GAA figure, shouting the odds beside him on the sideline. But it never fazed him.

"Ah, I met Páidí once or twice but never knew him. We just shook hands afterwards and I could see he was disappointed. But he came into our dressingroom and he was very gracious."

The primary difference between Kerry and Waterford is that a football county is taking on a hurling county. As Condon pointed out to Kiely at training during the week, "if our boys took up the ash stick, they would probably beat 20 of the county hurling teams in the land".

Brian Wall, Wayne Hennessy, Ger Power Liam Lawlor and Edmund Rocket have all hurled with the county and Kiely is adamant that Waterford GAA people are solely concerned with the upcoming Munster hurling showdown against Cork. The chasm that exists between Kerry and Waterford is staggeringly vast. But even allowing for the differences in tradition and expectation, there are lessons to be learned from the masters.

"You can see what real leadership does. Take Darragh Ó Sé - the key reason, I believe, that Kerry won their all Irelands over the last few years. He is an all-round player but he also has every quality you could ask for as a leader and he gives a team shape. He makes things happen."

But as trainer Michael O'Loughlin testifies, the effort and learning curve under Kiely has been steep. His first training session was on January 1st, 2005. This year, the squad met up in November and 17 of last year's championship 24 were back. That continuity was a huge vote of confidence and Waterford started in fairytale fashion, with a win over neighbours Wexford.

"And the disappointment was that we couldn't build on that for the rest of the league," admits O'Loughlin. "There were several games when we came close but we just couldn't close it out. And it can be hard to motivate players after several defeats in a row but they respond to the faith and belief that John has shown in them. And we can see the advantages of that. But in terms of playing Kerry, it is a daunting task but it is one that the players are very keen to take on, to see how they can perform against the All-Ireland champions."

Kiely is adamant he has some good footballers in his stable. He name checks John Hurney, pointing to the dual man's performances in the Railway Cup, when he swapped places with Kieran Donaghy at full forward and scored 1-2 in the company of the accomplished Galway defender Kieran Fitzgerald.

"Hurney is a big lad and we could use him in at the edge of the square. But the temptation is to keep him out near the middle because unlike Kerry, who have Ó Sé, Waterford cannot guarantee getting the kind of ball into the full forward that Donaghy has been used to."

It is imperative Waterford do not fall into their old habit of giving cheap scores away in the first 10 minutes. So often, they were forced to endure championship games that were over before they even began. In 1999, the year of that glimmer of hope provided by the junior team, Waterford lost their first-round senior match to Cork by 3-23 to 0-4. A thrashing like that can reverberate through the belief system for years.

The first important thing that Kiely did was to halt those horrible, demoralising landslide defeats. And slowly, Waterford football players were able to point to several solid achievements - that astonishing win up in Cavan, victories over Sligo, Tipperary and now that championship breakthrough against Clare. They are modest boasts but they matter.

"You aren't going to come into the Waterford dressingroom with talk of winning the All-Ireland and have a bunch of players looking at you knowing you are talking through your arse," says O'Loughlin. "It is step by step."

Tomorrow is surely a jump beyond them. However, it does emphasise the democracy of the GAA. Kiely cannot bank on Dungarvan being anywhere close to capacity but at least he gets to manage his players for an afternoon against the county most likely to claim the grand prize next September. At least they get to pit themselves against the best in the business. The chances are that by the time the players are showered and changed, the road crew will be rolling up the television cables and making haste for the next venue and that Waterford will be out of the championship and playing Tommy Murphy Cup football.

The chances are that soon, tomorrow's match will become a minor footnote in the story of 2006. Kiely is sanguine about this. He never asked for the attention and takes it with a pinch of salt. Either way, he will still be training Waterford football when there is nobody other than the players listening to his word.

"Why do I do it?" he mused.

"Sure why did Michael Collins do what he did? You do something because you believe in it."