Peter Queally took a call from the county board chairman, Pat Flynn. It was
eight days after Waterford had been gutted by Clare, like a fish. Justin
McCarthy was gone and his successor had been found though not yet revealed.
Flynn was looking for selectors. He told Queally the new manager was high
profile and from outside the county. That was all he could say. Queally
needed a couple of hours. He was training two teams and still playing for
two others. He had a wife, young child and a full-time job. And still.
A few days earlier the Waterford players had called for McCarthy’s head.
Together, they had jumped off a cliff. Queally was being asked to make a
small leap in the dark. How could he refuse?
His eyes were open. A core of the panel were former teammates and there was no
moratorium on bad news. “I had a couple of sources within the panel and
close to the panel who were filling me in all year about what was going on.
I knew how bad things had gone. I was armed with that knowledge anyway.”
How bad was it? Roger Casey has been kit-man to the senior hurlers for 14
years. As a job description it makes no reference to the lease they hold on
his heart or the load he has carried on his back. For years he has
threatened to give up and didn’t; couldn’t. If faith didn’t win the
argument, hope had the last word. On the day of the Clare match, though,
neither faith nor hope could fill the emptiness.
“It’s easy to be wise afterwards but the same buzz wasn’t there going up that
day. It gave me the impression, ‘Did they give a s***?’ Justin brought a lot
to Waterford hurling but things were gone a bit stale. After that match a
lot of people said, ‘That’s it, we’ll never see them in an All-Ireland final
now.’ I said it too. I’ll hold my hand up.”
Davy Fitzgerald met the selectors and the backroom staff on Tuesday, June 10
in Lawlor’s Hotel in Dungarvan. The next night they trained in Walsh Park.
Introductions were brief. The plan outlined was for two weeks. The mood was
stiff. The players had been consulted but this was basically an arranged
marriage without a courtship. On the first night intimacy couldn’t be
anything more than an aspiration.
“The thing that struck me was the tension on both sides,” says Queally. “Davy
was a bit nervous, which he was bound to be, coming into a strange
environment and a strange team. The players were a bit apprehensive. They
had more or less been vilified in the public and the media for the action
they had taken — within Waterford and outside Waterford. They were being
broadly criticised from all angles. There were even football pundits on
radio criticising the action they had taken. It not alone affected them but
it affected their families. I know from talking to different fellas that
they felt very hurt. Morale was down.
“But the important thing we did know was that on account of the action they
had taken we would get a good response from them. They had put themselves
under a certain amount of pressure. We had that on our side.”
In the week between McCarthy’s departure and Fitzgerald’s arrival the players
did three sessions with Gerry Fitzpatrick. He had been their physical
trainer and undeclared psychologist since 2004. The players respected him
and were keen for him to stay. They were not fit, however. It wasn’t
Fitzpatrick’s fault. A plan had been agreed to start training later in the
year and try to peak for midsummer. But the plan left them critically short
for Clare in May and that deficit was Fitzgerald’s first target.
“It was an eye-opener to see how low their fitness levels were,” says Queally.
“I wouldn’t have taken a whole pile of notice but Davy had only recently
retired and he would have seen how intense inter-county training had become.
Straightaway he brought that intense level to it and a lot of the lads were
found wanting as regards keeping up to that level.”
In some senses the change was ideal. Under McCarthy training had become too
comfortable. Players knew the short-cuts and the hiding places and some
players refused to be guided by their conscience. Fitzgerald exploded that
culture and replaced it with something edgy and urgent. He was in their
faces. Easy wasn’t an option. They had no choice. The drills were performed
with manic speed and when the drills were finished they jumped to his
whistle. He might give them 10 seconds to gather in a circle around him. If
even one player cocked up, all of them were punished. 50 press-ups. 100
press-ups. “It was hard, hard, hard and getting harder,” says Casey.
“Running, weights, ladders, hurling — you name it. There were nights when
they couldn’t walk after the session. I haven’t seen them as fit in any of
the years.”
“It was a whirlwind,” says Fitzpatrick. “The first night was like two or three
nights rolled into one. He had very little time. It became an
every-day-of-the-week thing with him to do what he had to do to change
things very quickly.”
Half of the year had been wasted. They didn’t have a second to lose.
WHEN Waterford reached their most recent All-Ireland final in 1963 Dave Walsh
was a boy of 10. His late father, Willie, was from Kilkenny so his Ford
Prefect was decorated with the colours of both counties that day. Waterford
were hot favourites, scored 6-8 and lost. “We were caught speeding going
through Thomastown that night. I don’t know how fast we were going because
it was nearly pedal power, like the Flintstones.” Kilkenny cops. Merciless.
That day a brilliant light went out. In seven seasons that Waterford team had
contested five Munster finals, three All-Irelands and three League finals
and for all they won the irresistible feeling was that they should have won
more. Their flamboyance, though, was an ornament on the game and in Walsh’s
universe they were giants.
Terry Dalton was a selector in ’63 and a family friend. He told Walsh he
should never be afraid to show his colours. Walsh embraced it as a motto for
life. As a boy he cut out newspaper pictures of Waterford players, fringed
them with blue and white crepe paper, glued them to wood and displayed them
on the front gate.
If you visited his school supplies shop in Dungarvan this week you would see
that nothing has changed. In one window are 16 action shots from the
All-Ireland semi-final victory over Tipperary, complete with homemade
captions. The source is a local press photographer, Sean Byrne, and after
every Waterford championship match Walsh seeks out new photos for the window.
A public shrine to his lifelong passion.
Walsh is in his mid-fifties now and for most of his adult life he has looked
for ways to donate himself to the cause. When Waterford won the U-21
All-Ireland in 1992 he was chairman of the supporters’ club; when the
supporters’ club dissolved the Waterford hurlers continued to enjoy the
benefit of his generosity. Privately and for no reward except the joy of
giving. There will be a banquet in the Burlington Hotel to celebrate the
team tonight and he is on the organising committee: 900 tickets have been
shifted at ¤150 a skull. Sold out. At another fundraiser last week ¤35,000
was generated. It was never easier for Waterford hurling to ask and receive.
What you can’t buy, though, is the feeling. “Training was open to the public
in Dungarvan last Friday night \and the crowd was unreal,” Walsh says. It
must have been five and a half thousand. I hadn’t seen as big a crowd in
Fraher Field since the famous matches between Abbeyside and Mount Sion in
the Sixties. When Davy Fitz came in, it was like getting a big injection for
a bad flu.
“On the Tuesday night before they played Tipp I watched them training and I
knew they wouldn’t be beaten. There was an aura about it. People said we
didn’t play well against Offaly and Wexford but I didn’t mind one bit. How
many times have we picked up the paper and seen the headlines, ‘Magnificent
Waterford bow out of the championship’. I prefer to read, ‘S**** Waterford
are still there’. That steeliness has come in. We’re grinding out results.”
Displayed in the other front window of his shop is an essay on the Waterford
hurlers that one of his daughters found on the internet more than two weeks
before the All-Ireland semi-final. It appeared on the UptheDeise website,
posted under the pen name of an lamh laidir. In essence it is a love letter
to Waterford hurling that runs for over two and a half thousand words: raw
in parts and beautifully written. Mary read it and immediately thought of
her father.
“This particular bunch \ have excited us, have frustrated us, have shattered
us, have elated us and above all have entertained us in a manner that was
unprecedented,” he wrote. “We have ridden a rollercoaster of emotion that
only Waterford people can really appreciate. That we are there again \ is
wonderful. Defeat no longer scares me. Experience has granted me a
perspective. I look at this team and the characters involved and despite the
absence of an All-Ireland this team and their immediate predecessors have
not only pumped blood into Waterford veins, it has been an artery of
adrenaline for hurling as a whole and it will remain an inspiration to those
who would care to look closely . . . They have beaten the best and in the
best way, maybe just on the wrong day. I’ve learnt to appreciate the
adventure we are on.”
In different words Walsh is bound by the same feelings. “I’ve shed tears over
this team but if you have it in your heart for them . . . On Sunday morning
somebody is going to have to pinch us. It’s the first Sunday of September
and we’re here.”
BLUE and white wristbands were ordered for the team. They didn’t arrive in
time for the Antrim match in the first round of the qualifiers but in any
case the bond they would represent was still being formed. On the bands are
three symbols: a plus sign for positive thoughts, NB for next ball and a
circled F for family. This family. Their family.
In number it has swollen to 50: 36 players and 14 backroom people. Many of
them have been with Waterford for years; others came with Fitzgerald from
his successful years with Limerick IT in the Fitzgibbon Cup: a mind coach, a
conditioning coach, a video analyst, match-day stats recorders and Bertie
Sherlock. He is described as the goalkeeping coach and, for sure, he
oversees the goalkeeping drills at training but his role is broader than
that. He is a lightning rod for crack. A good-vibes man. Fitz-gerald is
sensitive to good vibes.
Adjustments were made to fit but essentially what Fitzgerald brought to
Waterford was the template from Limerick IT, down to the finest detail. In
the college he asked for 200 new sliotars each month and exchanged them for
another batch at the start of the next month. In Waterford, Casey is asked
for 180 new sliotars at the beginning of the week with a dozen fresh ones
thrown as the week goes on. McCarthy needed only three or four dozen.
With Limerick IT, Fitzgerald had four stats guys on match days and another
three trusted observers. With Waterford the intelligence unit in the stand
is closer to double figures. Information is channelled to the sideline and
nothing is said at half-time before the data is checked. What he learnt
above all in Limerick IT was the value of consultation and delegation.
“He had a lot of these people in place in 2005 but he didn’t delegate,” says
one former LIT Fitzgibbon player. “By 2007 he was using them properly.
Everyone was involved doing something in each session and everyone was made
to feel important.”
The whole landscape of Waterford training sessions was radically altered. An
in-house video man roams the set with an access-all-areas pass to gather
material for motivational DVDs. Darren Ward, who was Fitzgerald’s personal
trainer in the final years of his playing career, arrived with his
conditioning aids, such as power bags. They fit around your neck, like a
feather boa, except they can weigh anything from 5kg to 25. Their purpose is
to combine a weights exercise with a running exercise and the outcome is a
killer drill.
On top of everything else it was another load for Casey’s kit-van. “When I met
Roger first in 2004 he had about eight cones in that van,” says Fitzpatrick.
“I’d say he needs an articulated truck now.”
The modified baseball machines returned, too, having been absent for the last
18 months of McCarthy’s reign. Other counties have used them, primarily for
high catching drills, but they have a broad range of functions and
Fitzgerald has used them for controlling low, bouncing deliveries at speed.
When they started doing the drills the machine was firing balls at 70mph; by
the end the dial was at 110.
“Everything is speed, speed, speed,” says Casey. “Upped nearly 80% I’d say.
It’s speed with a capital S now for everything.”
And if Damien Fitzhenry’s penalty had been a foot lower in Thurles, what would
it have been worth? Or if Seamus Callinan had buried his goal chance late in
the semi-final when the match was undecided and up for grabs? What value
would have been put on change then? They didn’t play well against Offaly or
Wexford and there was no disguising that. The car was in gear and moving but
the engine was rattling and the exhaust was belching fumes.
“We’d have been realistic about it,” says Queally, “and we’d have been
disappointed with both performances. We got out of jail both days,
especially against Wexford. We would have analysed both days and realised
that we were learning, too, as a management team.”
They survived a couple of setbacks and a tight finish against Wexford but,
because they struggled in a game they were confidently expected to win, they
weren’t given any credit for their composure. Building up Waterford’s mental
fitness, though, was as big a project for Fitzgerald as their physical
fitness.
In Limerick IT his man management was sophisticated and successful. In
Waterford he has managed to affect players too. His preferred method is to
pick his target and take him for a walk, setting up his clinic in a quiet
corner of the field. Eoin Kelly wasn’t the only focus but he demanded
significant attention. On a couple of levels he wasn’t in a good state when
Fitzgerald took over; now he is joint-favourite to be Hurler of the Year.
John Carey is available to the players every night. Cork used him in 2005 and
2006 and he was Fitzgerald’s mind coach with Limerick IT. Some of the mental
preparation is directly inter-personal, some of it is macro and atmospheric.
The walls of the dressing room are hung with quotes and motivational
phrases, changed each week in reference to a new theme that Fitzgerald
wishes to address. Did it give them an extra 1% against Tipperary? Was that
the difference between winning and losing?
They piked away an early lead, just as they had done against Clare in 2002,
and conceded a momentum-changing goal in the second half, just as they had
done against Kilkenny in 1998 and Cork in ’05 and ’06. But those other Croke
Park games had been lost and this one wasn’t. In a hectic, driving finish
they stuck it out. Was that an accident?
“How they won was nearly as important as the fact that they won,” says Carey.
“It was all about keeping their heads. If you allow scores to dictate the
way you feel, you’re going back to the way you were before. You have to deal
with it. That gives you a chance.”
“You can often sense these things and you could sense it that day,” says
Queally. “Davy has brought a different style to the pre-match rituals and
the lads have taken to it. They’ve responded to it. It’s not all gung-ho,
lose-your-head stuff. There’s a certain amount of calmness there. At the
right time, then he hits the buttons.”
Aggression was obvious in their performance that day, especially at the start.
Even before the throw-in. Nine days earlier they held a practice match among
themselves behind close doors where the B team wore Portlaw’s blue and gold
jerseys and Fitzgerald let them cut rashers off each other. That was an
element of his personality, of his game that he wanted them to import. They
bought it. They’ve bought into him.
“Looking at these lads over the last four or five years, a lot of them have
grown from young players into guys with families and businesses and much
more responsibility,” says Fitzpatrick. “Everything that happened to this
team along the way in some way contributed to making them stronger. Be that
the successes or the defeats we’ve suffered. That’s become part of the
strength that’s there now.
“There’s something strong within Davy, too, and I think the team feeds off
that a little bit. The way he gets them to think about themselves and what
we’re trying to do is very realistic. He put a little bit of strength and
steel in their heads that they can take away from training. Standing back on
the sideline you think, ‘Yeah, he’s winning them over, he’s taking them some
place.’ There’s a leader there and we just follow the leader.”
SEAMUS GRANT tries to imagine what it will be like if they win. Waterford’s
first All-Ireland in 1948 is still fresh in his mind. The sensation of it.
At 10 o’clock that morning he started queuing for sideline seats in Croke
Park. Waterford were in both finals, minor and senior, and won them both.
Kings of the world. When they returned home he smuggled himself on to the
team bus when it crossed the bridge and inched up the quays, a 17-year-old
stowaway. The crowd was estimated at 25,000 and the crush was so bad that
one young boy fell under the wheels of the bus.
There were more good days before the sun went black. By then Grant was county
board secretary. He took the job in 1971 and stuck with it until the end of
last year; 36 years. For a long time the only landmark seasons were defined
by misery: the Munster final hidings from Cork and Tipperary in the 1980s,
the calamitous fall into Division Three of the National League, the
championship defeat by Kerry in 1993.
The sponsors kitted the team and board officers with suits that day and a
group photograph was arranged in Walsh Park before the match. Kerry arrived
just as the camera was clicking. What a beautiful sight they made. A
19-year-old Paul Flynn scored 3-3 on his championship debut and Kerry still
won by a goal. Grant has the blazer upstairs in his wardrobe. A relic from a
time when their ambition was hollow.
What kept them going? Duty? More than that. Much more. “I never lost faith in
Waterford hurling. At times it was a mammoth undertaking to keep the game
going. There were years when we had problems getting selectors. But there
was always a hard core.”
Walking to Walsh Park the other day he met one of the hard core. Peg. She
beckoned him across the road and asked him to remember a League match
against Westmeath in Castletowngeoghegan 35 years ago. Peg was there and on
one hand she named the other Waterford supporters who travelled. “You said
that people like me are the real supporters,” said Peg to Seamus. “And that
if Waterford ever got to an All-Ireland final we should be the first to get
tickets. Well, I’m coming to collect.”
LAST Friday week Queally played golf with Fitzgerald. Between one thing and
another, Queally hasn’t time for golf. Once a year. Max. Fitzy plays off a
handicap of one. Brilliant. To make it interesting the manager agreed to
give his selector a shot on every hole. Queally, though, won the first three
holes. Fitzy is a sportsman. And he hates losing with every atom of his
being. The terms of engagement were hastily revised and Fitzy withdrew
Queally’s shot on all the par threes. Queally hung in there and they were
all square on the last. “He had a 40ft putt to win,” says Queally, “and boy
did he give it some attention. The putt lipped out and it nearly broke his
heart.”
For the past three weeks he has been standing over the toughest putt of his
life. A long, fast, slippery, breaking putt. There won’t have been a minute
when it didn’t enter his mind. On the night of the semi-final win he
travelled with the team back to Waterford. The players were allowed a few
drinks but he didn’t hang around for long. A friend drove him back to Clare
and on the journey he flicked open his laptop to watch a DVD of Kilkenny’s
victory over Cork the previous Sunday. Kilkenny didn’t leave anything to the
imagination that day. They told Waterford exactly what they would need to do.
“There’s no way we’ll come within five points of Kilkenny if we don’t improve
by 20%,” says Queally. “Simple as that. That’s how good they are. They’ve
raised the bar that high. You would have to be realistic in that regard.
We’ll have to improve a good 20% to be there at the end but that’s our aim —
to be there with five minutes to go, competing with them. We have the
experience of winning a few tight games already, which we hope will get us
over the line if we are there with five or 10 minutes to go.”
Kilkenny are long odds-on and their price with the bookies reflects their
chance. But once in a while a long putt drops. “You don’t get what you
deserve,” says Carey. “You get what you take.”
They have earned the right to be greedy.
