By John Harrington

The Waterford team that will take to the field for Sunday’s Munster Hurling Final against Tipperary is a different animal to the one that did so in last year’s. 

Back then they were still very much wide-eyed innocents, and the sheer carnival of a Munster Final day was something totally new. Waterford’s young players didn’t exactly freeze in the glare of the limelight, but when the match was there to be won it was a more experienced Tipperary who had the nous and nerve to seize the initiative.

This time around, Waterford know exactly what to expect, and the mindset that this is simply just another match is an easier one to dial into. Whereas last year, as Austin Gleeson freely admits now, too many of them played the occasion rather than the game.

“I’d say so to be honest,” he says. “I can’t really talk for all of the lads but even just talking to a couple of them in the couple of weeks after that, it was massive for us. It was our first Munster final in the senior grade since 2012 maybe.

“It was maybe 10 of the teams’ first Munster Final so it was always going to have an effect on us, especially with Tipp being such an experienced team. They kind of knew exactly what they had to do on the day and how to go about it, so that will only help us and help bring us on this year in the Munster Final.

“It’s just another game, that’s the way you have to look at it and just try and block out the crowd I suppose. Think that there’s 30 men on the field and try and get the better of your own man or get the better of their team and look at it that way. That’s the way we have to look at it, we can’t be building up saying ‘we have to do it for the crowd that’s looking down at us,’ and listen to everything that they are saying. Just park that and listen to what the lads are telling us and listen to our team-mates and trust everyone around us. If that’s the way it happens, please God we get over the line then. 

"We can only learn from last year and the three games against Clare. We know what way could help us. We have played different styles and systems and formations in the three games and we feel that we are more confident and more belief in ourselves. Last year was our first Munster final for a lot of us in senior grade and we are going to enjoy the build-up and hopefully we can go on better.”

Waterford have made great strides in the last two years, but if they are defeated on Sunday it’ll be the third major Final in a row they’ve lost – two Munster Finals and one Allianz League Final. The painful memory of that League Final replay defeat to Clare in May is still very fresh and they won’t want to go through those sorts of emotions again. It was used as a powerful source of motivation for their subsequent revenge-mission against Clare in the Munster semi-final, and it will drive them forward again on Sunday.

“I think we had three weeks in the build-up and you could just sense in training that lads were hurt from losing the way we lost,” says Gleeson. “We were a few points up going into injury-time in that game and the one fella you wouldn't want the ball to fall to was Tony Kelly and he ended up getting the ball and putting it over the bar.

“A totally deserved Clare win, I suppose. We have no complaints about the game, but it was just the hurt we felt after the game. We were two minutes away from back to back National League titles at the end of the day. We just knew going into that Clare game that we couldn't have that hurt again and we knew that if we won that game we'd be back where we were last year, in a Munster Final. So in the build-up everyone was just clued in 110 per cent no matter where we were in training.

“Every second of training was just 100 per cent. There was no-one slacking off and if they were they were told about it by the players. The players really drove it, the older lads, the likes of Kevin, Shane Fives, and Brick. They really drove it and gave it 110 per cent and it was great for us younger lads to see that, how much they wanted it, and it made us want it a lot as well.

“We just knew going into that Clare game, you could just sense in the dressing-room before that game, that fellas were going to die on the field if that what it took to win the game. And in the end we won the game. That's the way we felt going into the game, that it was going to happen, there was just total belief in ourselves that we were going to win the game and thankfully in the end we did.”

Self-belief comes easily to these Waterford players. Not only have many of them like Gleeson won All-Ireland honours at minor level, they also grew up watching Waterford teams win senior Munster titles. Young Waterford hurlers don’t hope for success now, they expect it.

"Yeah, the success that Waterford are after having I suppose from my memory, I think I was 7 in 2002 when Fergal Hartley was lifting the cup and I was gradually starting to build memories from there,” says Gleeson.

“It always Waterford getting to finals, getting to All-Ireland semi-finals and getting to places like Croke Park. There was always a belief that they could be the team and growing up I suppose from under-14, 15 and 16 we played every team in the country six or seven times.

“We’ve always beaten them at least two or three times, so from my age and the year above us and below us we always had the belief that we could beat anyone. We always just had a belief in each other that we could go on to the win the game. We were never saying ‘we are going out here to get hammered’ so that was just the belief we had and that’s the belief the lads are instilling in us now. It’s the way we have to go.”

This is still a young Waterford team and they should be contending for honours for years to come. Potential is only a worthwhile thing if it is eventually fulfilled though, and Gleeson believes they need to be winning the big prizes.

“I suppose the one thing that sticks out in my head, and Derek always says it is that we had good times but we never got up those steps,” he says. “He’s always trying to instil that, that they had good teams from ‘02 on I suppose and they had the calibre of players like Ken McGrath, John Mullane, Dan Shanahan and all those lads.

“He was just kind of saying that the calibre is there for certain players on the team now to go there or maybe even further. He’s saying that it’s now, it’s not looking back in 10 years saying what could have happened. It’s just now and make the most of it now, and don’t look back in 5 or 6 years and regret not ever making the most stuff and saying ‘oh we’ll have next year.’

“The lads that were playing 10 years ago don’t have that saying anymore and they never got up those steps, so he always tries to instill in us mostly to make the most of what you have now.”