The three and a half thousand punters who turned up at Páirc Uí Chiosóig in Mullingar for the AIB Club hurling semi-final between Dunloy of Antrim and Mount Sion were treated to a typical Waterford performance, notes An Fear Rua …

It had all the traditional ingredients – as traditional, indeed, as a big feed of Harney’s or Walsh’s ’blaas’ washed down by a few of Mikey Norris’s ‘learghe’ bottles … There was, as usual, the star-studded lineout coming down with Waterford senior panel members and Munster medal-holders. However, with the honourable exception of Tony Browne, the same ‘stars’ seemed more like burned out meteorites even before the first half had ended. There was the characteristic opening five to seven minutes when easy scoring chances were sent glaringly wide, while the opponents at the other end calmly picked off their scores and built up a handy little lead that stood to them in the end. Indeed, on the day, only Browne and goalkeeper Ian O’Regan – and to an extent – Ken McGrath looked like worthy wearers of the famed ‘Monastery’ jersey. True, the fullback and the full-forward lines had their names in the official programme, but that was about the only record of their attendance at Mullingar on Sunday.

The fact that Dunloy’s dying-seconds winning point came from a controversial decision by Kilkenny referee, Paddy Neary, should not obscure the depths of Mount Sion’s shame by that point in the game. In the end, swagger, arrogance and so-called ‘tradition’ will always be taken out by a superior hunger to win and by players who are prepared to put in the work to make the win happen. Once again, a Waterford team has gone to the brink of glory –when all they had to do was do the basics right and keep the head a bit – and have bottled out and stepped back into ignominy. On the basis of this performance, that decent man Just-In McCarthy will have his hands full with the Waterford county panel this year.

Hurling followers in other counties often marvel at the capacity of Waterford teams to play ‘flash’ for a period of time but to bottle out when the real questions are asked. It cannot be, surely, because it is more than forty years since they last won a senior All Ireland? After all, Clare overcame a gap of more than seventy years – and the curse of Biddy Early – before adding two senior titles in jig time? Or is it some kind of Losers’ Syndrome that hovers over the pleasant waters of the Suir, not as it flows down by Mooncoin, but as it passes down by Adelphi Quay and past the famed and noble Reginald’s Tower? ‘Ah sure, twill do, boy’ has long been a way of life down by the southern bank of the Suir. An insular city and an insular people, where outside influences are shunned and where righteous envy makes even modest success something to be avoided – ‘Ah sure look at the get up of him now … I knew his father when he was only a messenger boy in George White’s!’

Still, the innate brittleness of Waterford hurling teams should not be allowed detract from the value of Dunloy’s performance. At centre half back, Gary O’Kane was deservedly the TG4 ‘Man of the Match’. He not only held Ken McGrath scoreless from play, but he was constantly foraging forward helping his midfield and forwards. In the first half, Dunloy’s tactic of sweeping passes across the field to their number thirteen, Paddy Richmond, was not countered by Mount Sion and he scored a lovely goal, that put the Glensmen on the high road to victory. In fact, one way or the other, all the Dunloy forwards got their names on the score-sheet, but from the superb goalkeeper, Gareth McGhee, outwards, to the wily Alastair Elliott at no. 14, this a total team performance by Dunloy. Go maire siad a ngradam!

In the other semi-final, Birr marked themselves out as favourites to take a historic fourth All Ireland club title. Certainly, their unusual training methods – having Brian Whelahan humping sods of turf on the fire and Johnny Pilkington lifting crates of beer – seem to have paid off.

Unlike, Mount Sion, however, Birr will be wary of Dunloy. After all, ‘dem biyse’ has shown what they think of strong favourites …