What’s galling is that he’s indulged by RTE as some sort of managerial genius.
Now obviously he feeds them copious amounts of scutter to make him sound like some hurling svengali but beneath the flowery language his record ain’t all that. Loughnane nailed him.
Cahill has them playing a million times better and is actually getting results, without any of the circus.
We couldn’t buy a free off of Fergal Horgan
That Horgan is a bollox, done TDB back in 17 too
Loughnane fairly cut him to pieces in that article
I think you can split it whatever way you want. I’d argue that the Cork and Clare panels had the same amount of talent from 2014 to 2017 as them maybe even more but Waterford achieved more than either. Talent wise Galway, Tipp and Kilkenny were better than them but if someone had said in the spring of 2014 when Waterford were shipping hiding after hiding in the league that McGrath would win a league title and get to two A/I semi finals and a final over the next three seasons people would have said it was pie in the sky stuff.
He made them the fourth best team in the country in that spell, maybe they could have done more but I believe their talent level was closer to Clare, Cork, Limerick and Dublin in that time than the teams who won All Ireland’s in that time. 2018 was a bad year no doubt and he lost his job because of it but there were mitigating circumstances with injuries, suspensions and a terrible umpire decision v Tipp.
I don’t rate McGrath or his style of hurling but he did as well as could he expected with that team when taking the gig regardless of his spoofery, style of hurling and handy talk.
I don’t agree with any of that
That’s not entirely fair. We drew with Cork in 2014 and should have beaten them. Austin scored the greatest goal ever but then gave a stupid free to gave Cork the draw at the death. We were all over Kilkenny in 2016 but tied up in time honoured fashion. We had Galway on the ropes in 2017 before a bad wide took the wind out of our sails. 2018 was a disaster in fairness
In hindsight Derek had the greatest crop of underage hurlers Waterford ever had at his disposal but they were very callow and they are only coming into their prime now.
He was shocking, he kept KK in it. He was the same in the 1st half of the Leinster final. Strange behaviour from a Tipp man.
He’s a terrible ref.
I don’t understand this piece.if he made them fourth and they were not as good as top 3 and were closer to teams mentioned, then fourth is where they already should be no?
Move towards the light! @balbec will sort out the paperwork. The kilmallock lads have a great track record at sorting out transfers.
That is about as high as they could go with the players available. Maybe a different manager might have gotten more out of them but on the balance of probabilities I’d wager that they would have more likely been behind a few of the teams listed in that time under different management rather than the best of the rest in that time
Waterford play one good half of hurling (a very good half to be fair) after an abject first half and Cahill is being eulogised as some kind of second coming.
If he doesn’t win an AI in a few weeks he will be equally rounded on I suspect.
In fairness his first year was very much a transitional one with a very young team. Reaching AI semi-finals in 15’ and 16’ and an AI final in 17’ is not to be sniffed at. 2018 was a disaster alright and tarnishes his record.
They were good against Limerick and Cork…
I think they are being slightly over egged alright, that’s a very limited KK team but the important thing from it is they didn’t wilt and despite 3rd week on the bounce they out worked and out fought kk every where. Ozzie delivering was huge for them also.
As long as a Munster team takes Liam home it’s ok, not fantastic from a Cork point of view but that’s it
McGrath had Noel Connors, Brick Walsh, Moran, Gleeson, Barron, TDB and minor & u-21 All-Ireland winning players at his disposal. One league title over his tenure is paltry enough.
To say he “did as well as could be expected” with what he had at his disposal is puzzling, in all honesty.
Ye should have tried.
In fairness Davy had emptied the piggy bank and Skully had them bating tires in training for two years so there was a bit of rebuilding to be done on very meagre resources. We don’t have a PJ or a Supermacs.
Also worth bearing in mind that we won the under 21 All Ireland in 1992 but didn’t get out of Munster until 1998 so we are possibly a bit ahead of schedule team wise. And we were knocked out of Munster the year after we won the u21 by Kerry.
The galling thing about supermacs is that across all codes, he actually spent a pittance, given the exposure he got.