By John Harrington

Waterford hurling manager Derek McGrath has told the county’s supporters they need to be patient with his young team this year.

The Deise were very unlucky to lose Sunday’s Allianz Hurling League Final replay to Clare by a single point, but at the launch of the Munster GAA Championships on Monday McGrath warned there could be worse days ahead.

“I think they (Waterford supporters) have to have the open mindedness to know that there is going to be a hammering along the way at some time. I think we’ve done well to avoid, not a hammering…within our camp we’ve treated every league game like an All-Ireland final. I have to be completely honest, the sustainability of that, we are actually welcoming the week where players are with their clubs. They had a few pints on Sunday night and enjoyed a bit of craic.

“They need to be patient because there will be ups and downs. I keep saying the words ‘team building’ and ‘work in progress.’ Some people are irked with it a small bit but that’s my genuine belief, that we need to get way better to go where every team wants to go.”

The manner in which they were beaten by an injury-time surge from Clare on Sunday must have been desperately disappointing for the Waterford players. But McGrath is not worried their exertions over the course of the 160 minutes it took to settle the League Final will leave them drained ahead of another clash with Clare in the Munster Semi-Final on June 5.

“I don’t with this particular bunch because I think we have a group of lads who have a real thirst for information and knowledge,” he said. “They are not the type of lads that if you overload them that they would think ‘there is too much in my head.’ Our group is young and it’s very much based on wanting information and being sponges for information. They are also well able to switch off, have the craic and the balance is there in terms of their downtime.”

There is a limit though to how much information McGrath wants his players to soak up. He is particularly wary of the sort of outside commentary that followed their drawn League Final with Clare when there was much criticism of the dour, claustrophobic nature of the contest.

“It was very difficult, because the mindset in the group is not to talk about the old-fashioned, 'this fella said this, this fella said that',” said McGrath. “We want to move away from that. It's necessary every now and again but we're definitely moving away from that - 'did you hear what this expert said'. On the way up I heard Donal Óg (Cusack) on the radio say there were a lot of elements to the first (drawn) game that were completely unrecognised by critics in terms of how players played. I'd wholeheartedly agree. It's getting the element that will never buy into it, who don't view it as hurling at all, getting them over the line. We played no differently on Sunday, tactically, yet the game was totally different. But people today were telling me we set up completely differently, the shackles were off, all of that.

“The danger is that like the changes implemented in Gaelic football in the last few years, that if the games continue to go in a particular fashion, that there'll be a sense of 'we need to change this, change that'. I played in a league match in 1994 against Offaly, and it was the day you were only allowed to catch the ball once and then hit it. I think there's a danger of people saying 'we'll need to do something here'. It's widely acknowledged that Galway-Tipp was the best game last year, but to me there were lots of tactical things going on in that game that people didn't see. It's the breakdown of the play - when the short game or otherwise breaks down, you'll have people saying 'will you hit it in?' I might be in the minority, but the drawn game, 22 points each, to me was completely absorbing.”