Derek McGrath has argued that Waterford and Wexford are not the only teams to employ a deep defending tactic, and has strongly refuted claims from pundits that the system is restrictive on his players.
Hurling traditionalists were up-in-arms on Sunday, when the defensive tactics of Waterford and Wexford pitted heads against each other in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, most notably Michael Duignan and Henry Shefflin.
Duignan claimed it was not the “Game I love,” on the match that transpired on Sunday.
Waterford manager Derek McGrath was speaking on The GAA Hour Show on Thursday when he provided a measured and thouroghly reasonable response to this criticism.
McGrath argued that they are not the only team employing such deep defensive tactics, and that this is a universal trend in the game, but that pundits aren’t noticing it because it’s not as pronounced in other team’s systems.
“Let’s have no debate about it. We love the game too. I love hurling. I played with Waterford for every level from under-14 up to senior all be-it not as the same senior status as Michael Duignan. The one thing I would say is if you’d a proper look at the Kilkenny – Limerick game, it would’ve shown you Walter Walsh right at the edge of the D.
“A proper look at Clare and Limerick in the Munster semi-final, Colm Galvin all but played as a seventh defender. It wasn’t highlighted because it was a bit more disguised than what Cian Dillon was doing for example.
“I read Henry Shefflin saying that Noel Hickey forever would’ve been saying to Brian Hogan, ‘Don’t be going further than five yards away from me.’ It’s a bit more pronounced what we did, but for me the basic concept of deep defending is the same.
“With the more traditional counties, it’s called working hard or tracking back, with us it’s called the ‘sweeper.’
“I can tell you, in the four years I’ve been involved in our dressing room, I’ve never used the word ‘sweeper’ once. It’ll be ‘We’ll go deep, we’ll help out. It’s a marked change in terms of marking policies, we might have left a centre forward free and he might have picked seven points from play, but that’s another debate.
“We have the current young hurler of the year and senior hurler of the year, and supposedly in a restricted system, they’ve been voted by their peers as the best players in terms of what they bring to the game. I find a certain irony in that. I find a certain shallowness in it.
“We feel, as a group, that our best approach is that. We’re not going to apologise to anyone for that. I would say, without being insulting, that people need to work harder at the punditry. They need to ask the questions and not be as lazy in terms of their approach to analysis.
You can listen to the typically honest interview with McGrath on the GAA Hour Hurling Show here from 17″00′.
