NATIONAL HURLING LEAGUE/WATERFORD v DUBLIN:Despite their failure to win a senior All-Ireland title, Waterford's hurlers have been consistent diners at hurling's top table over the past decade, writes Tom Humphries
DUBLIN'S HURLERS journey to Walsh Park tomorrow and regardless of how the hurling goes the city boys might benefit from a cup of tea and a little chat with their hosts afterwards. Ten years ago Waterford had many rivers to cross and only will kept them alive. Ten years ago they dawdled under the lintel in hurling's house of respectability. They had been a long time getting there and a decade on they still wouldn't feel comfortable kicking off their shoes and reaching for the remote.
Waterford 10 years ago: in 1998 they reached and lost a National League final and reached and lost a Munster final, following a replay. As breakthroughs go those three grand days out were sufficient for the time.
Waterford had known yearnings as keen as any counties and had watched Clare, Wexford and Offaly seize half a decade's worth of All-Irelands. Waterford would be next. Surely.
Ten years on and the miracle is the sustainability of Waterford's revolution rather than the brief burning light of its best moments. Ten years on and Clare, Wexford and Offaly have their names chiselled into the record books, but are returned to the wilderness from whence they came.
Waterford have been so long in the last-chance saloon that we have come to think of them as the resident lounge act, a refutation of everything we know about expiry dates and learning curves.
Last weekend Waterford travelled to Nowlan Park in Kilkenny and got a mugging. The locals slapped them about with 25 points thrown over by a team half-filled with reserve players. On other days in other times Waterford would have shut the dressingroom door and talked to each other for an hour agonising as to whether their existence was now without objective meaning, purpose or essential value.
Instead, Justin McCarthy chatted sunnily with RTÉ and then came down and did the same with us inkpot merchants. There was no sign of anomie. Waterford conceded that they were six weeks behind Kilkenny preparation-wise and that they hadn't the depth of resources Kilkenny have. Who has? Nobody had passed away. Waterford were still Waterford. Perhaps the persistence of self-confidence in the face of dashed hope will be the legacy of Waterford's revolution.
Waterford offer a different template for Dublin to look to. The Dubs take an essentially Catcentric view of the world. If it has been good for Kilkenny it must be good. End of.
Waterford's breakthrough in 1998 came about, however, not as a result of the county finding itself brimming over with underage talent which would eventually becoming uncontainable, but through senior-level coaching. 1998 indeed came shockingly late for those who were electrified by the summer and autumn of 1992, when Waterford won the minor and under-21 double in Munster and reached the All-Ireland finals in both grades, beating Offaly in a replay in the under-21 decider.
But the Déise was brimming with talent, wasn't it? Paul Flynn, about whose person Aston Villa were sniffing, had scored 3-6 in that year's Munster minor final against Tipp. Flynn was drafted into the under-21s late on, coming in as a sub in the drawn game with Offaly, and starting in the replay when he scored five points.
In harness with Seán Daly he gave a glimpse of the dreamtime. Daly was unreal. That famous old story about Brian Lohan coming home in Ger Loughnane's car after losing a Munster under-21 final and saying dejectedly to Loughnane that he reckoned he would never be asked to wear a Clare jersey again. That came after Daly had taken Lohan for five points from play earlier in the day.
Lohan had company that summer. Kevin Kinahan, no less, would be taken for three goals by Daly in the drawn All-Ireland final.
He would score three goals against Antrim and four points against Cork. He was a blue-chip certainty.
Daly's senior championship career was over by the time 1998 was done. Paul Flynn is still with us, the faltering beam of his genius having blinded partisans and frustrated critics in all the years between. Back in 1998 when Waterford played that league final against Cork, Daly wasn't part of it. A big, gangly young fella called Dan Shanahan was though. Few understood how that could be but, well, if the revolution was starting, so be it.
When Dublin audit the bulging storehouses of their underage successes (the county are provincial champions at colleges, minor and under-21 level right now) they might ruthlessly depreciate the value of those yet to make the transition to senior championship hurlers.
If Seán Daly should have been there right through the revolution so too should Johnny Brenner and Tom Fives. Waterford extracted Tony Browne and Fergal Hartley from their under-21 success and they were the backbone of the senior set-up by 1998.
Six of the Offaly boys went on to win senior All-Irelands that year, however. They just burned brighter.
And Waterford's success has been different too in that through the glories of 2002, 2004 and 2007 virtually nothing has stirred at underage level. The county's first under-21 Munster final appearance in 13 years ended last year in a 13-point defeat. The county hasn't won a minor provincial title since 1992, and hasn't been in a Munster minor final since 1996.
At last though, on the schools front things are beginning to blossom. Belatedly a conveyor belt may be emerging into view. De La Salle have put together successive Harty Cups, last year's breakthrough ending a 53-year famine for Waterford, a stretch of hardship which goes back to the heyday of Mount Sion in Harty Cup action. Last year's De La Salle team went on to win the Croke Cup and would be favourites to do so again. The school has also won two of the last three Seán Ryan Cups.
Blackwater Community College, an amalgamated schools team centred around Lismore (and captained by Maurice Shanahan), won the Munster B title this year, a year after emerging from the C grade. They will compete at A level next year.
Some sort of model of sustainability continues to emerge in Waterford. Dublin still wait for the senior breakthrough. Back 10 years ago, when Waterford first got their act together, Dublin enjoyed an encouraging springtime, beating Galway and Offaly quite comfortably in the league. Waterford's good fortune in proceeding to a league and then a provincial final seemed eminently imitable.
Offaly went on to win that year's All-Ireland, however. When Waterford played Cork in that league final they were a different side from what they are today. Ken McGrath was still precocious. Dan Shanahan was still not Dan the man. Tony Browne had the legs to run the middle of the field and Paul Flynn was in the corner.
There have been times in the interim where it has been tempting to give Dublin the benefit of the doubt and hail the future as having just arrived. In the leagues of 2002 and 2003 Dublin beat Waterford; the latter result on a day in Dungarvan when Waterford were Munster champions featured the sight of Dublin leading by 15 points at one stage.
Waterford kept pushing on though, hedged in by hurling superpowers and hampered by debilitating defeats, a fickle audience and patchy underage structures. Their constancy has been an inspiration. Ten years on will Dublin see it as a learning resource?
