ALL-IRELAND SHC SEMI-FINAL/WATERFORD v TIPPERARY:EOIN KELLY strolled into a room underneath Croke Park and sat down behind a desk. He rubbed his eyes and slouched over the table. He wore a T-shirt with cartoon figures that read: The Unusual Suspects. It could become the tag line for this renewed Waterford now. He rubbed his eyes and suddenly looked drained.
"Like being back at school again," he said about finding himself suddenly sitting at a desk. Minutes earlier, Kelly had been up above on the grass, transported to a place that is both new and traditional. Yes, Waterford are back in an All-Ireland final but for these players, it is a first time. They have broken new ground.
You only had to watch John Mullane in those last minutes to know what was going through Waterford minds. The De La Salle man had been taken off by Davy Fitzgerald and he paced the sideline like a man waiting to discover if he was going to be saved from the electric chair after all. When it was over, he raced to the field, met Davy Fitzgerald racing the other way and the two men dived into each other. The wonder was the pair of them did not spontaneously combust. Suddenly, after 10 years of trying, Waterford were bound for that that rare place, an All-Ireland hurling final.
"It hasn't sunk in," Kelly admitted. "It probably won't sink in until tomorrow. The one thing is that I hope it doesn't pass us by. Like, we are in a final and we haven't been there for a long time but there is no point in just making up the numbers. We will have to get back to work."
When Davy Fitzgerald eventually sat down, he appeared to be already thinking about the days ahead. For one of the most high-profile and voluble players in Gaelic games, there has always been something distant about "Davy Fitz", something unknowable. His latest act, coming in to revitalise a team that seemed washed up, surely emulates his greatest days on the field. Already, though, he was talking of the tasks ahead in that rhapsodic way of his.
"We don't place any illusions on today. We know today could have gone to Tipperary just as easily as we won it. Tipperary had the chances and the wides. But I think we showed a lot of character when the Tipp goal went in. Normally that would break a team. Didn't break 'em. And it was a great win for those boys and I am proud of 'em. But I did expect a performance out of them. This is straight up.
"Anyone that watched Kilkenny last week will give no one in the country a chance. They brushed Cork aside. Now we have two choices. We can go up and enjoy the day and give ourselves no chance. Or we can get down to work again tomorrow night and let's go up and tear into it and see what happens. These guys will be big-time underdogs. But we have been that all year. These players have taken a lot of stick. They are still there. I have tremendous respect for Kilkenny. I know the players they are, I know the manager they have. And they are awesome. But on any given day for 70 minutes, you don't know what will happen."
Liam Sheedy looked shattered afterwards but he handled defeat with the same class he showed when Tipperary won the National League and Munster titles. No complaints or recriminations, just a fair-minded account of the breaks of the game.
"Ah look, Waterford have been here before, they came at us really strong at the start of the match. Six points to one up. But the lads got to grips with it and we were happy enough at half-time. But in fairness to Waterford, they showed their experience and played lovely hurling. They cracked 1-20 and we cracked 1-18. Waterford are a class side and nobody would begrudge where they are at. If there is a team of the last five or six years it has been Waterford.
"We came here with all guns blazing and we just came up short. We will come back stronger for this. We maybe lacked a killer punch and that bit of experience of an All-Ireland semi-final stuff but you learn from that. The match hung on things. That is hurling."
Somewhere, in the back of everyone's mind, were thoughts of the man who was not there. There were surely traces of Justin McCarthy's hurling craft and six years of work in the Waterford scores yesterday. Eoin Kelly nodded solemnly when he agreed that when the players sat down together and made a move that ended with McCarthy resigning his position, it had been a last, desperate effort to revive their summer and, in many cases, their careers.
"We didn't like doing what we did. Justin is a nice man and a good hurling man. But we did think that there was a little something we didn't know if we were going to get from Justin. There are lads in there in their 30s who never got to play in an All-Ireland final until now."
Ken McGrath paid tribute to his former mentor as well. "Look, we won three Munster titles with Justin coming from playing Division Two hurling back in 1997. You don't forget that. We had great times with Justin. We have respect for him. And I hope, and I am sure, he is happy for us. Davy came in the first day with unbelievable passion and enthusiasm. He played like that as well. It is a pure professional set-up and the attention to detail is top notch. He is a double All-Ireland medal winner and we knew he had it in him.
"We are back in the final now. If you said that to me last year, I would have laughed. We are not panicking and that is a good sign of a team. We were happy enough at half-time. We were always calm on the field. Davy was calm on the sideline. Don't know if he looked calm. But he was. He made the right decisions."
