By Kevin Egan

Ken McGrath sees a lot of Ireland these days, and he’s very appreciative of that fact. When he stops to take the call to take about the PwC All-Stars and what his three awards in 2002, 2004 and 2007 meant to him, his work has just brought him to the picturesque Wicklow village of Hollywood, where he’s about to call into a local café that he supplies with coffee.

It’s an industry that bounced back quickly from the initial shock of the pandemic, and is currently thriving. More than that, it puts him in front of people, it brings him to lots of undiscovered corners of the country, and as he says himself “you don’t feel the day go by when that’s what life is like”.

That theme of taking a moment to take stock and feel gratitude for where life has taken him is a consistent theme. Later in the conversation he talks of some of the All-Star tours that brought him around the world, with the very same tone of contentment at having had some wonderful experiences throughout his hurling career.

“I remember being out in Singapore in 2006, my wife was with me as well, and we were in an incredible hotel, in the pool that was up on the roof, asking ‘how did it come to this?’”, is one such thought.

Perhaps part of this ability to appreciate the high points in his hurling career comes from having lower expectations when he was younger. Anyone in their early thirties or younger has only ever known a time when Waterford were invariably well-represented at PwC All-Star awards. It’s easy to forget that in the first 31 years of the existence of the awards, just four Waterford hurlers were selected, winning five gongs between them. That shaped perceptions of what was possible among up and coming stickmen in the Déise.

“My own club man Jim Greene won one in 1982, alongside John Galvin who was winning his second, and after that the next man to win one was Tony Browne in 1998” says McGrath.

“There weren’t many All-Stars floating around Waterford when I was growing up, so if you’d said to me when I was in school that I’d be nominated seven or eight times and win three of them, I’d have said you were dreaming!”

McGrath made his debut in 1996 as an 18-year-old, and it quickly became apparent that he was likely to break that mould. His breakthrough coincided with that of the county, when the 2002 Waterford team won their first Munster title in 39 years. Yet two years previously, he came far closer than any player who played less than an hour of championship hurling should ever be able to do.

“By all accounts in 2000 I was close to winning one, I’d had a very good league and was hurling well in the Munster championship against Tipperary, until I had to go off with injury. It was also a good year with Mount Sion too. But back then, it was straight out of the championship if you lost, so it was always going to be tough to get selected on the back of one championship match”.

McGrath’s recollection understates quite how well he was hurling that year. The day after the Tipperary game, where the Premier County prevailed by 0-17 to 0-14, Waterford full-back Sean Cullinane was quoted in the Irish Independent as saying:

“No doubt about it, Ken's injury had a major bearing on the game. He was the ace in our pack and was playing brilliantly. If we had him at his best for the full game we would have had a great chance”.  

Two years later, there was no doubt about his selection in the lead up to the awards, and sure enough, he received the honour, as did Eoin Kelly and Fergal Hartley from the Munster champions of the time.  

“In 2002, the All-Star awards were the Friday night and then we played Sixmilebridge in the Munster club final on the Sunday, so that was a fairly memorable weekend!

“My main memories of that are that it was a huge honour for my club and for my family, but above all, once you’ve won one, you want to win more. I had been lucky enough to be selected for the All-Star tour to Buenos Aires in January of that year as an alternate, I was the only Waterford man on the tour, and it was a really fantastic experience, I was mad for more of it after that”.

He cites how 2002, when Kelly, Hartley and himself were all selected on that year’s All-Star team, gave the group both the confidence and the desire to try push on to the next level.

“You need to have your own personal ambitions, to want to be the best that you can be individually and the team will benefit from that. I never felt that I was softened by winning one, and the likes of Tony (Browne) and John (Mullane) would have been the same”.

In 2003 Waterford had a disappointing summer, losing the Munster final to Cork and then crashing out of the qualifiers to Wexford, but they roared back in 2004, meaning that McGrath was back on stage at the ceremony.

 “In 2004 I had been switched to centre back and that move rejuvenated my career, I feel I played the best hurling of my career in that position. I was delighted then to win the All-Star at centre back in 2007, because it was a little weird to win it at midfield in ’04. I had played at centre back all year and then moved up to midfield for 20 minutes of the semi-final. I probably was hurling well enough to win one all right, but Ronan Curran got the centre back position so I was picked in midfield.”

It means that Ken McGrath is part of another very select group, alongside another Waterford man (Michael ‘Brick’ Walsh) and Tommy Walsh of Kilkenny. As of now, these three men are the only three players to have won All-Stars as a back, a forward, and a midfielder.  

“I’m in great company there, even though it does feel strange because of the ’04 award at midfield. That said, the All-Stars awards have huge respect all across the GAA community, and it means a lot to be a part of that. Any player who tells you these things don’t mean anything is lying to you, of course it’s great to feel you get that kind of recognition, all the more when it’s not something you ever imagined happening.”