Derek McGrath pictured at the Celtic Challenge launch last week.
By Cian O'Connell
Waterford’s interesting adventure continues with Derek McGrath providing innovative and thoughtful direction.
The Deise face Clare in the Allianz Hurling League final on Sunday and next month the same teams clash in the Munster Hurling Championship.
Crucial contests are arriving thick and fast for a rapidly improving Waterford outfit, who claimed silverware at this stage last year.
That league title arrived following a campaign in Division 1B, but McGrath was enthused by how Waterford fare this spring.
“We were hoping to progress and stabilise - all those words,” McGrath admits. “I think even amongst ourselves as a management, Division 1A is so cut-throat, it is so pressurised as an environment every week with the whole issue of being in a relegation play/off or otherwise.
“I think again in a traditional county - I'm not saying we aren't a traditional hurling county - but in a county that has success over the last 15 years the stigma of relegation has a bigger effect on the actual group.
“We were all out to progress, just to make sure we were safe first and foremost. We viewed from the quarter final stage on as being a new competition. There is a great sense of satisfaction in being able to maintain a steady enough upward curve throughout the league.”
Waterford star Austin Gleeson.
That has certainly been achieved by Waterford with McGrath adamant to stress that their ‘extremely serious approach’ for all matches in the competition.
“We’ve made no secret of our approach to the league. We are not a team that feels we can gear ourselves for a Championship run.
“In football the perception is that Kerry and Dublin do that every year if you like and that they can time their run physically so every week we play it’s extremely serious approach and you would question the sustainability of that into the future. You don’t know, time will tell.
“I have no problem focusing on the Championship, but we’d be disappointed because we’d be giving it everything we have in the league and if we are after being comprehensively outplayed, outthought, that will just be what’s after materialising on the day and it won’t because we have an eye on the Championship or anything like that - that’s the reality of it.”
A revitalised Clare have cut a dash scorching through to earn promotion to Division 1A and then subsequently outfoxing Tipperary and Kilkenny.
When asked was he surprised by Clare’s triumph over Kilkenny McGrath responded. “I wasn’t now to be honest with you. I wasn’t taken aback. Not that I feel Kilkenny are waning or anything. I just feel Clare are an exceptional team. I just think they are an exceptional team. I have said that openly for the last three or four years. They are where we would like to be in two or three years time.”
For so many different reasons Clare are what Waterford aspire to become like according to McGrath. “A super, super team, obviously very hungry and they are just playing to a different beat than everyone else at the moment.
“It’s a great challenge for us to be kind of competing with them on Sunday. And I mean that outside of all elements of psychological mind games before a game. I actually, genuinely, that’s my honest opinion, I think Clare are a serious team, a super team.”
