By John Harrington

After 25 years as the Waterford hurling team’s kit-man, Roger Casey’s pre-match routine is pretty much set in stone by now.

Waterford are playing Limerick on Saturday evening so he’ll load up the van the night before.

There’s the obvious stuff like the three sets of jersies, 150 sliotars, bibs for the subs, 12 crates of water, cones, and assorted fruit.

But, as he says himself, “some fellas look for the most awkward things”, so he’ll also have a stash of less obvious supplies like hurling grips, tape, wine-gums, jaffa cakes, laces, studs, and towels.

He’ll hit the road to Limerick early on Saturday and be in the dressing-room at least an hour before the players arrive to hang up the 26 jersies and have all the water, food, bibs, and everything else ready to go.

If it was a Championship match, many of the jersies would have to be hung on a particular peg to please the more superstitious players.

After quarter of a century doing the gig, there’s very little by now that Casey isn’t prepared for.

Newly appointed managers tend to like to bring in their own men, but it’s a testament to Casey’s diligence that nine Waterford managers in a row have now made him a key member of their backroom team.

“My first manager was Georgie Leahy in 1995,” Casey told GAA.ie

“Seamus Grant was the county secretary and asked me would I do it.

“It was only meant to be for a small term but managers just kept asking me back. Liam Cahill is my ninth manager now.

“I don't know how I've done it. Am I foolish or what? It's fairly full on, but I've made great friends from it over the years.

“Even the different kit-men from different counties you'd end up being great friends with and you'd always meet up with on the day of a match for an aul chat and a cup of tea.”

It takes a certain level of fanaticism to have given the sort of service to the Waterford hurling cause that Casey has.

The time commitment is huge and many of his tasks can be filed under thankless.

“It's a lot of work, alright,” he says. “I suffer from rheumatoid arthritis and it can be good and bad, if you know what I mean.

“I told my doctor I was going giving it up this year and he said stay going as long as you can, it's therapy for you.

“I said it to Liam (Cahill) when he was appointed and he asked me would I do it again and I told him about the arthritis and he said he had no problem in the world with it once I had the van and the gear, there's plenty of lads who could take out the gear and put it back into the van for me.

"So that was that. I bring all the washing home, the jersies especially.

“My wife (Kay) gave 20 years washing jersies. At this time of year when you get a jersey after a League match, a white jersey is fairly hard to clean.

“She likes it too, but we're both crocked at his stage!”

There’s a simple reason that Liam Cahill did his utmost to persuade Casey to stay on as the team’s kit-man – he does the job really well.

It isn’t just that he’s a master of his logistical brief, his personality is another reason why he’s such an important presence in the dressing-room.

Inter-county panels can be fairly intense environments, and Casey’s temperament means he doesn’t get rattled easily and is the sort of friendly face players love to have about the place.

Michael Ryan managed the Waterford team for two years and saw at first hand the sort of value someone like Roger Casey brings to the set-up in more ways than one.

“I don't know any job in the GAA that's tougher,” says Ryan. “So much time goes into it, when you really think about it. He's always there an hour before training and usually an hour after it too.

“You're out in all kinds of weather and it certainly isn't a glamorous job, but Roger has always brought a sense of wit to it and a sense of calmness. He doesn't get excited easily and has great patience.

“If you were to look at all the virtues required for that job, then patience would be up at the top of the list along with a sense of humour, and Roger would have both.

“He's a fella who always thinks before he speaks and weighs everything up. He's almost like a very shrewd politician!

“He's been there since the mid-nineties and has worked with I don't know how many managers and has gotten on with everybody.

“It's a sign of the calibre of a person he is that all the players would have great time for him. When you stand the test of time like he has, that's the greatest test of all.

“Behind the scenes he does an awful amount of work between looking after gear and washing kit. He puts an unbelievable amount of time into it.

“It's in no way a glamorous job, but it's a very important one, and Roger does it very, very well. He's a great fella, really.”

Casey is quite often the first person that the Waterford players meet when they arrive to training or a match, and his presence is a reassuring one.

Always good for a laugh as well as well as whatever extra bit of kit a player might need, he’s a hugely respected as well as liked figure within the group.

“Ah Roger's a great man,” says Michael ‘Brick’ Walsh, who spent 17 years in Casey’s company on the Waterford panel.

“Even the whole backroom staff thing, it's a massive part of the GAA. Roger is like part of the furniture.

“He's a great fella to have around, great character. Always there, never misses a session which is fantastic.

“But he's a great character and he's a genuinely nice person. It's great to have those people in around there because at times they lighten the mood.

“The commitment they give, a lot of people don't see the work that goes on with those. We had everything laid on for us. That's the thing people don't see at inter-county.

“People say about the commitment and time that we put in, but everything is laid on for us. Those backroom teams and management, the work they put in, we only have to worry about ourselves as a player.

"Everything is there for you. You just bring your gear, yourself obviously, but they are laying out cones, they're bringing gear, getting balls and all that.

“And the day of the match they usen't be able to have the team meal with us before because they used to be going off in the van I don't know what time before it so they probably didn't even get to enjoy the games that much.

“We were very lucky to have the amount of backroom fellas we had over the years, it was fantastic. And the work they put in it was great for us and Roger was top of the pile on that.”

‘Brick’ Walsh is just one of many current and former Waterford players that Casey has formed strong bonds with over the years, though he’ll admit that Paul Flynn was probably his biggest ‘pet’ of all.

John Mullane is another he has an awful lot of time for, which is a testament to Casey’s forgiving nature considering Mullane nearly cut the finger off him one day in the dressing-room.

Mullane liked to get fired up before big matches by belting the nearest table with his hurley, and on one occasion Casey unfortunately found himself in the firing line.

“We had done the warm-up and were back in the dressing-room and I was giving out the jersies,” recalls Casey.

“Now they're hung up on hangers, but that time you'd be giving them out to lads.

“I put my hand across the table to pick up a jersey and John was giving a bit of a spake and banged the hurley down on the table but never saw my hand.

“It was funny in a way because my wife and daughter were at the match and would have seen me on the field when the lads were doing the warm up and then when I came out on the field the next time I was all tied up in a sling.

“The doctor was after putting ice and a bandage on me. So my wife and daughter were there wondering, 'What's after happening him?!'

“It wasn’t broken, but it was a first-cousin of it!

It’s the memories and friendships formed that have made Casey’s considerable 25-year commitment so worthwhile.

The big championship days have a special sort of electricity about them too, and he’s been around long enough to find out that some go your way and many others don’t.

“Yeah, some great days and some bad days,” says Casey. “The first Munster Final we won was a special day alright. We walked over Youghal bridge with the Cup coming back from the match.

“And when we got to Dungarvan. I don't know if you know Dungarvan, but there's a church at the top of the hill and when we came down there was around 10,000 people in the square to meet us. It was something really special.

“I had always wished we'd get to an All-Ireland to see what it would be like.

“And then when we got to the one in 2008 I'll never forget Brian Cody with about ten minutes to go and they were winning by about 15 points and he was shouting up the line to get his players going to get even more.

“It was a long journey home that evening in the van, let me tell you!”

The hope that there will always be better days ahead helps keep him going, as does his faith in the current panel of players who he regards as “a great bunch”.

The last couple of years have been tough ones for Waterford, but Casey is optimistic that Liam Cahill can get them moving in the right direction again.

“I think if we could get any rub of the green at all this year there's a great crop of lads there,” he says. “They're so keen and they're all enjoying it.

“They're training hard. I don't think I've seen a Waterford team as fit in years.

“Liam is a good man, too. There's great sense in what he does.”

The fact that Cahill could see the value in persuading Casey to stay on as kit-man proves as much.