Eamon Dunphy, Only A Game?

DAN had struck for another couple of wonder goals, Ken McGrath had pulled off a catch and closing 20 minutes to rival his immortal finish in the 2004 Munster final, and yet, for Donal O'Grady last Sunday, the Man of the Match was a no-brainer. "From the word go, " he told Pat Spillane after the latest episode of the 2007 Cork-Waterford trilogy, "there was only one man for this . . . and that was Stephen Molumphy."

It brooked no argument.

The amount of ball he won on the ground, the amount of ground he covered, the goals he laid on for Shanahan; you didn't have to be a coach of O'Grady's standing to appreciate it. At 23, Stephen Molumphy has done in one year what it took his football equivalent, Brian Dooher, eight years to manage . . . for the good pro to be valued by the GAA intellengsia and common man alike. As John Mullane said after the league final, "Every team needs a Stephen Molumphy." And no team needed a Molumphy more than Waterford.

Before 2007, Waterford under Justin McCarthy had relied on individual moments of magic from Dan Shanahan or Paul Flynn for a goal. There was no such a thing as a worked goal. Waterford's only pure assists for goals in those five previous summers had been Flynn's quick free to John Mullane in the 2003 Munster final, Michael Walsh's hand pass for Mullane's goal in the 2004 Munster semi-final against Tipperary and, at a push, Seamus Prendergast's low ball for Paul O'Brien's match-winner the same day. It was a trend that ultimately validated the infamous 'Our World, Their World' poster of yesteryear.

This year that poster has been consigned to history and the dustbin. In each of Waterford's last three games Molumphy has laid the ball off for moves finished to the net by Shanahan or Flynn, a sure sign of a team, not a bunch of individuals.

In person Molumphy is everything his on-field demeanour suggests. Honest and modest, a coach's dream.

His old coach from his St Colman's days, Denis Ring, calls him the "Denis Irwin of midfielders and forwards". His club coach with Ballyduff Upper, Maurice Geary, testifies that he's still the same Stephen from years ago, still walking around with his beloved dog and his sliotar and hurley. Two hours after scoring 2-3 in this year's league against Down, he lined out for the club in a challenge game against Kilworth. Two years ago he flew back from a Defence Forces' trip to Australia to play a divisional final before flying back out the next day. His is literally a life of service to club, county and country.

His trainer up in NUI Galway, Tony 'Horse' Regan, says that on the rare occasion the cadet can't make training, "he'll be the first guy to buzz me, all sincere, all apologetic".

Molumphy's commanding officer this summer in Stephens' Barracks in Kilkenny, Kieran Brennan, the former All-Ireland winner and brother of Nickey, vouches for his diligence and work ethic. They all do.

If Molumphy is not afraid to work hard, maybe it's because little in his life has come easy.

In his early teens, his father died tragically. One night in a pub some local youngsters were looking for a spin to a disco when their normal chauffeur declined, having drank one too many. The chauffeur duly came in for severe stick from the mob, prompting Stephen's father to intervene and quietly tell them to leave the man in peace. For his troubles, one of the young fellas took a swipe at him, and whatever way he hit the floor, he went into a coma for a month before slipping away.

It would have broken many a family but it did not break the Molumphys. Stephen's four older brothers all play for Ballyduff Upper, and two of them, Mike and Tommy, played with the county intermediate team in last night's All-Ireland semi-final in Thurles. Stephen has been particular resilient. When he was in his mid-teens, he was severely restricted by a knee injury and two years ago by another injury that delayed his advent onto the senior county panel. He was always going to make it though; it was just a matter of when.

"Technically he was always very good, but it was his awareness and use of the ball that stood out, " says Ring.

"Normally at that age when a fella is out by the corner flag or on the 14-metre line they'd go for their point but he'd play the angled ball across, as much because it was instinctive to him as it was something he was told. He'd rarely hit a wide and never hit a bad wide.

"If anything, his contribution off the ball is even greater.

Whenever he's not in the game he's still getting in his hook and his block. What he did against John Gardiner last week he did for us against Gort in the All-Ireland colleges final. He was corner forward but one of the jobs we gave him was to come out and crowd out Shane Kavanagh and he did it to perfection.

He's always in your face, biting at your heels, driving you mad."

Last Sunday it got to Gardiner, with the Corkman picking up a yellow card. It wasn't a malicious pull but it was late and another player might have gone to ground or sought retribution. Instead Molumphy, typically, just dropped the ball to the ground and moved on.

Molumphy always had the stamina to play that kind of relentless game but not the physique; by Ring's admission, he was "roughed out of it a bit". But Molumphy worked on a weights programme and now his capacity to forage for loose ball is phenomenal.

"In seven out of 10 rucks, Stephen will emerge with the ball, " says Tony Regan.

"There'd be matches and I'd say to [NUIG team coach] Mattie Murphy, 'I guarantee you that Molumphy will come out with it' and next thing, he'd have it. A lot of fellas throw shapes in there but Stephen's in there to win it."

For all the work he's done in January mud, helping NUIG to the Fitzgibbon Cup final though, it's his exploits in August sunshine that have elevated him to poll position in the Young Player of the Year grid.

In the drawn match with Cork, Molumphy was on the ball 19 times; An Muilteoir, the columnist for An Fear Rua website, calculated only Ken McGrath touched the ball more. Some touches were more important than others.

When Neil Ronan pounced for his second goal to put Cork four up with four minutes left, even Tony Browne threw his hurley to the ground.

Molumphy though made the run and got that "touch in the box" to bring Waterford back to within one.

Dunphy would have approved. So would Browne.

Not for the first or the last time, Waterford had been rescued by the good pro.