Derek McGrath
By John Harrington
Waterford manager Derek McGrath emotional state was a mixture of delight and relief after their epic All-Ireland SHC Round 2 Qualifier win over Kilkenny this evening.
His players did it the hard way after surrendering an eight-point lead in the closing minutes of normal time only to come good in extra-time, but in a way that only made the achievement more impressive.
They had to show serious character to pull through in the end, and McGrath admitted the win felt like real turning point for a team that has fallen just short in big matches in the past.
“There's a sense of, you go to two League Finals, you go to two Munster Finals, you don't turn up for last year's Munster Final, you go to two epic All-Ireland semi-finals last year...so the pressure was building on all of us, the management and players to go the next step,” said McGrath.
“Now, we're not even the next step now, we're in the quarter-final now, but I suppose we're advanced in terms of the opposition we've beaten.
“The challenge for us it to just take it on again. That's the reality. Wexford or the losers of Cork or Clare, tomorrow, there's nothing easy ahead of us.
“We'd be hoping there'll be some confidence gained from what happened today. I know those lads in there, they'll want to get back out there again as soon as possible.
“We'll go out tonight, we're going to have a couple of drinks tonight. We're two weeks away from the match, so we'll have a few pints tonight. We're going to enjoy it, I think the lads deserve it. We'll focus on the Munster Final tomorrow.
“We'll go out and celebrate this without going cracked.”
It looked like Kilkenny were the team with the psychological edge going into extra-time, but Waterford showed a lot of bottle to seize the initiative again.
McGrath admitted there was initial disappointment that they hadn’t closed the game out in normal time, and paid credit to the substitutes who gave his team a renewed energy in extra-time.
“Initially we just had to gather our own thoughts as a management,” said McGrath. “Pauraic couldn't walk but we were toying with the idea of bringing him back in for the actual free in the last minute just in terms of his overall radar.
“So I think there was initial disappointment from management in terms of Pauraic's injury. We were kind of saying, 'Jesus, this is going to come back to haunt us', to be perfectly honest.
“That was the initial thought, then we needed to lift ourselves, body language and the overall approach, it was a head down approach.
“The pleasing thing from our point of view is the likes of Maurice (Shanahan), Brian O'Halloran, Tommy Ryan...we spoke about the strength of our panel and that this would be the biggest test of that. Any modicum of doubt at the end of normal time was put to bed by the performance of the subs in extra-time which is really pleasing.
“I think we were good value for the win overall, albeit we did it the hard way.”
Brian Cody
Kilkenny manager Brian Cody was naturally proud of the spirit his team showed to force the match into extra-time, but admitted the better team won in the end.
“I think they (the Kilkenny players) proved tonight how resilient they are, how competitive they are, how determined they are, and also how skilful they are. They showed an awful lot tonight.
"Our team has been questioned over the year by just about everybody really. That’s their prerogative but our team tonight was as competitive as is humanly possible to be, and came within a whisker of winning the game.
“It went to extra-time, and they regrouped well. The momentum that they were able to rediscover, and there was some very good hurling, obviously. They were more consistent in their play over the 90 minutes than we were, but the resilience, spirit and determination we showed are the hallmarks of everything a team has to have.”
When asked about his own future, Cody certainly didn’t give the impression of a man who will be walking away from the role of Kilkenny manager anytime soon.
He traditionally makes a decision on that every November, and will stick to that routine.
“If I'm still around in November, I probably will be yeah," he said. "The plan is to be around in November. My future is irrelevant. The future of Kilkenny hurling is very, very secure.”
