Derek McGrath would know better than most people about “the balance between getting caught up in a moment of brilliance and conforming to the team ethic.”
When you’ve got a talent like Austin Gleeson in your ranks, you have to manage that and harness it.
The Waterford boss is said to be one of the most structured managers in terms of team set-ups and tactics but who in their right mind would ever want to put any kind of a chain on a man like Austin Gleeson?
This is a man who, at just 21 years of age, is as much as a household name in Cushendall as he is in Dungarvan. All over the length of the country, young ones are growing up dreaming of being the next Austin Gleeson and he is only just getting started.
In a brilliant interview on the latest GAA Hour hurling show, Colm Parkinson put it to Derek McGrath about Gleeson perhaps being guilty the last day against Cork of taking an incredible score when the ball might actually have been worked in for a potential goal.
McGrath responded perfectly.
“He would be the first to acknowledge that. He would be the first – when we’re doing a video review – to say, ‘Jesus, that was open, I didn’t see that’,” the Deise manager explained.
“Invariably what happens, and it goes to show the lack of control you have as a manager, when you’re nearly encouraging that [conforming to the team], the next ball he gets he’ll do something that’s completely off the wall in terms of brilliance.
“It’s kind of getting the balance right between pointing it out without having it imprinted on his mind that he HAS to do this.”
Asked if it was tough or easy to manage a player like Gleeson, McGrath said it couldn’t have been simpler.
“He’s an extremely nice young man – a very funny, very witty young fella. He’s very popular with the lads.
“He’s extremely laid back with regards to his whole approach. I had him in school as a student and all his mates in school were not hurlers at all, just guys that were on the corridor with him having the craic. He’s very, very easygoing first and foremost, as a personality.
“In terms of coaching or structuring or whatever – I’ve had this argument with several people – we play him in no position. I think the best thing for Austin – in a team that’s supposedly structured – we allow Austin to do what he wants as such.”
He still gets used to do a job every now and then though.
“He played right half back on Cian Lynch in the Gaelic Grounds and did a very good man-marking job.
“He’s a point of debate for people in terms of where he should play and where he shouldn’t play. My feeling on it is that he should play where you want him to do damage and I think that’s probably a free role more than anything else.
“The difficulty for Austin is that he’s a much-heralded figure in GAA circles. At 21 years of age, to have to deal with the level of media attention and the level of adulation amongst Waterford people is a difficult thing – but he’ll do it.
“He’s a dream to coach because he’s extremely laid back as an individual but focused in a way. He arrives to matches in great form and nothing really fazes him.”
Listen to all of McGrath’s thoughts on the serious competitor that is Austin Gleeson (from 47:35) below.
