By John Harrington

Waterford hurling manager Derek McGrath would like to see the Allianz Hurling League and All-Ireland Hurling Championship restructured.

And he believes the best way of doing so would be to directly link both competitions.

“First of all, I find it amazing that a team that finishes tenth in the League, fourth in 1B, is rewarded with a quarter-final spot,” said McGrath yesterday at the launch of the KN Group All-Ireland GAA Golf Challenge.

“Whereas the team that finishes fifth or sixth (in Division 1A) is not in it. So I think there needs to be some sort of structural change to the League.

“I suppose with the emergence of the CPA and the absolute spotlight that surrounded the ‘Super 8s’ in the football I think it's become fashionable now to talk about what should be done in hurling.

“I'd be confident that the hurling development committee and the good people on it will be coming up with some suggestions anyway.

“Not as a reactionary step to what's happening in football, but moreso that they actually had a plan themselves. I would see big changes coming, maybe a later League.

“I'm on record as saying I'd like the two sixes in the League, 1A and 1B, to join together (in a 12 team Division One) and the top four in the semi-finals. The so-called weaker counties still get a chance to compete with the better counties.

“I'd love if there was some sort of link-in between the League and the Championship where it ran into the Championship.

“That would probably spell the end of the provincial championships which I don't think would go down well, but I'd probably like it to go in that direction.”

McGrath’s Waterford need a win against Clare on Sunday to be sure of qualifying for the Allianz Hurling League Division 1 quarter-finals.

That would require a much better performance than the one they produced in their last match against Cork when they were well-beaten in Walsh Park.

McGrath is adamant they did not take the Cork challenge lightly going into that game, but concedes the Waterford camp might not have been as fired up for it as they needed to be.

“I think - and it should never be part of our scenario - I think even the language used in the run up to the game, not by us, but by outside our group in terms of just almost dismissive language in terms of Cork.

“I'd be very wary of that approach seeping through to our players. I'm not talking about local-based journalists or local based media, just local based talk in general seeping through to, not the attitude of the players, but just to the group in general.

“We definitely left a bit of emotion somewhere because we did point to the fact that if we won, we would be secure quarter-final. We mentioned all those things, put a bit of pressure on the players.

“So I think our flatness was as much to do with how good Cork were. I just thought they were very impressive in the first match against Clare and the first 45 minutes against Kilkenny. As much as you analyse how we were, a lot of credit has to go to Cork.”

We’ve become so used to watching Waterford out-work and out-hustle other teams that it was surprising to see them come out on the wrong side of so many rucks for possession against Cork.

McGrath admits they simply haven’t worked as hard as they’ve needed to thus far in the League campaign.

“I think other teams have out-worked us,” he says. “Cork are playing very similar to how we did two years ago. Luke Meade getting the same role as Colin Dunford did for us two years ago. Comes out the field, Shane Kingston comes deep. They're extremely deep and wherever the ball was there was numbers.

“For me, the freshness was evident in Cork's play with the numbers they had around the ball. I think that relentless nature of being where the ball is hasn't been evident bar the first game against Kilkenny and the second-half a little bit here against Dublin. Other than that you'd have to say it's been absent.”

This young Waterford team has clocked up a lot of mileage in the last couple of years.

Most of them have had to combine inter-county hurling at senior and U-21 level in that time level and you’d wonder if they’re perhaps a little weary both physically and mentally.

“That's a definite possibility,” admits McGrath. “The argument between fitness and freshness. We'd consider ourselves to be in a very good state physically, but freshness, not mental fatigue, that they've just be on the road a long time.

“That's the argument in my head now as regards Friday night, whether to change it up or not, whether that change would bring a freshness to it. First time in two or three years, just in a little bit of quandary what way to go with it.

“There's definitely elements in that combined with the run to the U21, the club championship, then the Fitzgibbon, there seems to be an element of tiredness there.

“But it's like anything one good victory or one good turnaround performance just changes everything.”

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