A hard sell won’t soften with spin

It’s been another busy weekend on the big ball front - taking in five games across various grades as group stages come to a close and championships begin to assume some shape.

Unsurprisingly, Rathgormack and The Nire remain the top two in the senior grade while Brickey Rangers and Clashmore Kinsalebeg remain the standouts in the premier intermediate ranks.

There is a lot of negativity when it comes to the narrative surrounding Waterford football, which in my time as a columnist - I have made a conscious effort to counteract and dispel as I believe encouragement and fresh thought is a far better use of platform than adding to the whining that never runs risk of short supply. However, I also must be honest - I attended five games, and three of them were putrid.

Sometimes, you can’t dress it up any other way and you have to be honest. There are some fantastic footballers out there and I saw them in action this weekend - Alan Dunwoody, Michael O’Brien, Stephen Curry, Dermot Ryan, Michael O’Halloran - all outstanding in their own right. In the same breath, I also watched some games and felt dumbstruck that I was watching the senior and premier intermediate championship.

That is where the conversation has to become a little more uncomfortable. There is a difference between being negative for the sake of being negative and pointing out something that is plainly in front of you. Waterford football does itself no favours, and I do it no favours in return, when we pretend everything is fine simply because we want it to be. Nobody benefits from that.

Not the players, not the clubs, not the county team and certainly not the supporters who give up their Saturday and Sunday afternoons to watch it. Let’s also call spade a spade, supporters were in short supply in most venues I was at for good measure.

The championship should be the shop window. It should be the point in the year when the standard rises, when players are desperate to make their mark and when supporters leave a game talking about what they have just witnessed. There were glimpses of that over the weekend. There were also periods where the games became a procession of lateral handpasses, misplaced kicks and players taking very few risks in possession, which is the bit I struggle with most.

I have no issue whatsoever with a team being tactically disciplined. I have no issue with a team playing possession football if there is a purpose to it. Possession for possession’s sake is not football that anybody wants to watch, and more importantly, it is not football that ultimately develops players capable of operating at a higher level. I yawned more times than I care to admit at one senior game this weekend.

The best teams I watched over the weekend had intent. They moved the ball with a purpose, they attacked space and, crucially, they had players willing to take responsibility. When Alan Dunwoody gets the ball, there is an expectation that something might happen. When Michael O’Brien gets possession, you are watching for the next move rather than simply waiting for the ball to go sideways again. That is what good football does. It creates anticipation. Too often we witness the opposite - no risk, no reward.

There is also a responsibility on players themselves. We talk constantly about coaching, structures, facilities and the county set-up, and all of those things matter, but ultimately there comes a point where footballers have to try to play football. Take the shackles off. Back yourself. Try the pass. Take the shot. Run at the man. A mistake made trying to do something positive is far more useful than another safe action that takes you nowhere.

Of course, that is easier said than done - and sometimes it isn’t for a lack of trying. Representing your club in competitive football carries pressure, and nobody wants to be the player who coughs up possession and watches the opposition score from it. Managers understandably demand structure and control. Players understandably follow instructions. Somewhere in that equation, the instinctive part of the game can get lost - when it does, the spectacle suffers.

There is another issue here too, and it is one that cannot simply be blamed on managers. If we want Waterford football to improve, supporters have to want more from it as well. Not in the sense of screaming abuse from the sideline when somebody misses a kick - which I heard plenty of on Sunday, but in terms of expecting standards. We should be able to say that a senior championship game was poor without somebody immediately accusing us of being anti-football, pro-hurling and all the rest.

That is not negativity. That is caring enough to want better, and there’s a significant difference in that.

The same applies to the players. They should be demanding better from themselves and from one another. The great club teams are rarely great because every player on them is a superstar. They are great because standards become contagious. One player makes a run, another recognises it, somebody else covers the space behind him. There is communication. There is urgency. There is a sense that every possession matters - rather than waiting for someone else to take a game by the scruff of the neck for you.

There’s far too much filling up numbers and passengers being carried. I would go far as saying some people look disinterested - call that a lazy criticism, but sometimes you see little to suggest the contrary.

The gulf between the good and the ordinary in the group phases was so noticeable.

Rathgormack continue to look like a team that knows exactly what it wants to be. The Nire are in that conversation for the same reason. There is no great mystery about it. They have talented footballers, obviously, but they also have a level of cohesion and belief that allows those footballers to express themselves. That is the challenge for everyone chasing them.

The championship is now entering the stage where excuses begin to run out. The group games have given teams time to settle, experiment and find combinations. From here on, one bad afternoon can end a campaign. The margins get smaller, the pressure gets greater and the football should, in theory, improve with it.

That is what I want to see. Whether it comes to fruition remains to be seen.

I want to see the wider championships become genuinely competitive rather than simply a procession towards the teams we already expect to be there at the business end. I want young players coming through and believing they can impose themselves on games - and thankfully, that is something we have witnessed in a few cases.

Most of all, I want people leaving grounds in Waterford talking about football in a positive sense rather than a negative one.

There is plenty of ability in this county. Anyone who says otherwise simply isn’t watching closely enough. The names I mentioned earlier are evidence of that, and there are plenty more besides them. The raw material is there. The question is whether we are getting enough out of it.

That is not a criticism of one particular club, one manager or one player. It is a broader question for Waterford football. If we genuinely believe there is potential here - and I absolutely do - then the ambition has to extend beyond playing out championships as a box-ticking exercise.

Results matter, and they dictate narratives - but how you play matters too.

There is nothing wrong with admitting when a game is poor. In fact, I think we owe it to the people involved to say it. The alternative is far more damaging: pretending that everything is grand or accepting mediocrity and wondering years down the line why standards never moved.

So yes, I saw some excellent footballers this weekend. I saw moments that reminded me why I keep coming back. I also saw three games that I would struggle to recommend to anybody who wasn’t already invested in the result. Both things can be true.

If the second part annoys people, good. Not because criticism is the objective, but because perhaps it starts a conversation.

Waterford football has enough good people, good players and good clubs to deserve that conversation.

If we want Waterford football to be better, we have to be honest about where it falls short - and optimistic enough to believe it can be better still.