Paul Flynn was exceptional in that 2004 semi final. Flynn was a serious hurler and himself, Ken and Tony Browne were the real class acts on that team, a few notches above the likes of Shanahan, Eoin Kelly and Mullane.
Waterford really missed Mullane in that 2004 semi final. If he’d kept his mouth shout after the Munster Final, maybe there might have been something to work with on the rule book to get him off and playing against Kilkenny. Once he did his tired and emotional, People of Waterford, I love me county address, that particular ship had sailed.
GeoffreyBoycott:
Paul Flynn was exceptional in that 2004 semi final. Flynn was a serious hurler and himself, Ken and Tony Browne were the real class acts on that team, a few notches above the likes of Shanahan, Eoin Kelly and Mullane.
Waterford really missed Mullane in that 2004 semi final. If he’d kept his mouth shout after the Munster Final, maybe there might have been something to work with on the rule book to get him off and playing against Kilkenny. Once he did his tired and emotional, People of Waterford, I love me county address, that particular ship had sailed.
Mullane had bigger issues at the time. He was up in court for assault and needed to be seen to do the magnanimous thing regarding the suspension as the last thing he needed at the time was more negative publicity.
That said Shane Sullivan in his place was stone useless and one of Justin’s most bizarre selection decisions.
If you don’t play aimless whacking of the ball up the field, the inverted hurling snobs will cut you in two
Derek McGrath almost made hurling enjoyable.
That trial and acquittal if memory serves me correct was the week before the 2005 quarter final against Cork.
Heard a good one about that, I’ll send you a PM.
The prosecution wanted him tried in Kilkenny be cause they argued they wouldn’t get a fair shake in Waterford. The defence sure as fuck didn’t want him tried in Kilkenny because he was hated there after debollocking a lad in Mullinavat in a challenge match. If he’d be n tried in Kilkenny he’d probably still be in jail. As it was he was acquitted by a jury of his peers in Waterford.
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Fagan_ODowd:
Malarkey:
Fagan_ODowd:
Malarkey:
Fagan_ODowd:
Malarkey:
The main reason, in practical terms, Waterford did not win the AI was because the forwards largely would not pass to each other.
There was also the fact that their best hurlers – unlike with Kilkenny – were not their best leaders.
The passing thing is interesting. Wasn’t overly conscious of it at the time, but one moment of the 98-08 team has always stayed in my mind. In the 04 semi final, we got off to a disastrous start and had given up three goals in the first twenty minutes. Somehow we stuck into the game and we still had an outside chance at half time. In the second half Paul Flynn was on fire and we came roaring back into the game. We got the margin down to 3 and Kilkenny were on the ropes. Seamus Prendergast made a great catch about 60 yards out and bore down on the Kilkenny goal. Eoin McGrath took a line outside him and was completely unmarked speeding towards the goal, screaming for a pass. The pass didn’t come. Prendergast caught the ball 3 times and from the free Kilkenny went down the field and scored. The siege was lifted and the game was over. It was like Kevin Morans notorious wide in the 17 final. A complete momentum shifter.
In saying all of that there is every likelihood that if Prendergast has passed the ball Eoin McGrath would have made a bollix of it. But we will never know.
Thanks. I remember that incident clearly as well. A real hinge, as you say.
Kilkenny should not have won that day, really – and maybe would have been better off if they’d lost, if only because experience of the final would have been massive for Waterford, one way or another. Kilkenny learned nothing except what deep fatigue feels like. Anyway, too many mistakes were made in earlier games. They didn’t really deserve to get to the AIF. Henry’s eye injury obscured – no pun intended – this truth.
SP’s oversight was almost undoubtedly clumsiness. A great bit of stuff on his day but a bit panicky in possession. Same time, too many of the Waterford forwards, for all their individual brilliance, were too selfish to pass when a pass was 110% the correct option. You cannot butcher good goal chances at the level required to win an AI. While Taggy Fogarty mightn’t have got on the Waterford team, he would graft and pass.
A member of the Waterford panel 2002 onwards said to me the forwards were playing for an All Star too much of the time. Even later, the same was true. Brian Hogan retired after 2014 and wrote a season’s worth of columns for gaa.ie. One column highlighted a Waterford forward who kept going for points in an AI semi final when a goal was required to offer any chance of recovery. BH kept schtum but I know he meant John Mullane.
Then again, JM got his five All Stars. He might well argue he took the right option. Would JM be on radio and in the Indo otherwise?
There was a better one in one of the Munster Finals later, possibly 2010. One of the forwards had backed himself to get the first goal. Half the county had got wind of this and were on it as well. Sure enough we got a free after about 3 minutes 30 yards out and yer man steps up to take it and goes for goal. He eschews a few more chances for points trying to get the first goal before finally succeeding about 15 minutes in and then he reverted to tapping over frees for points.
With rogues like that on board we were never going to win the All Ireland.
Another thing was that certain forwards could never get the measure of opposing backs. Mullane never got so much as a puck of the ball off Brian Murphy. Ditto Big Dan on JJ. So in the really big games we were always hobbled. Tommy Walsh spooked us so much that we once started Eoin McGrath on him to try and start a fight with him and get both sent off, the notion being Kilkennys loss would be much greater than ours. Tommy laughed it off and destroyed us as usual.
Yes, those comments are about as good a summation of Waterford’s ultimate travails as could be written. The “rogues” factor was unfortunate, because toleration for ‘roguery’ makes for poor control in the medium term. Poor control leads to poor results. The gambling player in question was out, scuttered, a few days before a mid 2000s championship match. He rounded on a supporter when asked what he was at. The match duly got lost.
While Brian Cody gets a lot of stick for his persona, his approach, while not charismatic, did get pretty much the best out of lads who might have slipped sideways or backwards – especially after initial successes. Some of the Kilkenny lads were no way as all out destined for great intercounty careers as people later asserted. Plenty of them liked messing and drink.
Not learning from experience is the biggest no no for intercounty talent. Take Noel Hickey, by way of contrast. Noel Hickey: bested the odd day but never bested twice by the same man.
Have always thought not making the AIF Final in 1998 and/or in 2002 weighed heavy on Waterford’s fortunes. Both years, they should have been there. While I doubt Waterford would have beaten a sore Kilkenny in 2002, they might well have beaten Offaly in 1998. If they had been there, either year, the whole penumbra changes. Parts of the county’s psyche starved of light heave into the light. Besides, just reaching either season’s AIF would have broken the tent of hype about making the AIF – and would have bequeathed 2004 onwards a far different psychological dynamic.
Yes, knockout pressure really did seem to get to Waterford. Although Ken McGrath’s dead balls were immaculate for most of the 2006 AI semi final with Cork, his freetaking splintered during the closing minutes. Waterford badly needed a Caroline Currid. Justin McCarthy could coach lads’ wrists but not their heads. Opposite way round, Brian Cody.
I remember seeing the Waterford players coming out of the tunnel, mobiles up to their ears, before the 2007 AI semi final. I said to the lads with whom I was watching the game in a pub: “They’re not ready.” And Waterford were not ready – and an inferior Limetick turned them over.
Huge pity, all of this stuff. Mutton heads are still blowing hard in the media about Cork during the 2000s. Waterford were much better to watch – and their best spells sure topped Cork’s best passages. Alas, Cork’s lulls were nothing like as injurious, on or off the field.
Our gambling man took to hiding out in a pub in Bonmahon for a couple of weeks before the 2005 quarter final against Cork in which he failed to score and he picked up a cheap yellow card. This extract from the match report however indicates our dilemma, which in fairness Cody didn’t really have to deal with
“Justin McCarthy brought in Paul O’Brien and Paul Foley in an effort to improve the forward line but neither made any great impression. The truth is that Waterford’s back-up talent remains extremely limited which in one of the reasons they continue to come up short against the super-powers.”
Heard about that escapade at the time, because I have cousins near there…
Would Sean Power be in contention for the Waterford job @Fagan_ODowd ?
Any reason why? Thought he did well with the U21’s?
A. They won’t put in another Mount Sion nan after Patsy
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John Evans gone from Wicklow.
Listen, this isn’t about John Evans.
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Why did Joe Quaid get the road in Westmeath?
balbec
July 24, 2019, 12:34pm
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He didn’t bring enough Westmeathness to the table.
Or else he brought too much
I think the physio brought a little too much.
The replacement they got in for that physio was a serious improvement tbf.