He wasn’t writing about hurling, but he could just as well have been.

In the opening passages of his sweeping epic of a book, Underworld, the great American novelist Don DeLillo anchors the narrative around the final night of the 1951 series for baseball’s national penant between Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. Setting the pre-game scene in the shadow of the "old rust-hulk" of a stadium, DeLillo pitches the importance of an event that, for various reasons, would stitch itself into American sporting folklore. ‘Longing on a large scale is what makes history’, he writes.

It’s not, of course.

History is made of much more than that but as an explanation for what sets certain sporting triumphs apart from others, DeLillo’s is as neat and perfect as it gets.

That’s what makes this Sunday’s hurling final so compelling a prospect.

Few hurling counties do ‘longing’ better than Galway and Waterford, a refreshingly novel pairing whose All-Ireland cravings are each counted out in decades rather than years.

In Waterford’s case, we’re talking about a yearning of near Mayo proportions. Close on six full decades. 1959 it was when last they did it; then it was the first Sunday in October and a replayed final against neighbours Kilkenny. A perfect day - over 77,000 people assembled at Croke Park and Waterford’s Tom Cheasty throwing shapes that had, to borrow Michael O’Hehir’s wonderful line, Kilkenny defenders "falling around him like dying wasps". A score-line at the end that read 3-12 to 1-10.

It couldn’t have been sweeter.

A still of Frank Walsh being presented with the trophy 

Film from the day, captured in grainy and glorious technicolour by amateur film-maker, Thomas Fewer, tells of a sport and a country unrecognisable from what will be on show this weekend.

Fewer’s footage opens with men and women milling about the streets outside Croker in crepe hats and their Sunday best, and ends with a surprisingly calm-looking Waterford captain, Frankie Walsh, waving aloft the Liam McCarthy trophy like it was most natural thing in the world for him to be doing.

Perhaps that’s what it was at the time.

Waterford had only ever won one All-Ireland title before – in 1948 – but ever since the 1930s they had been insinuated into the upper ranks of hurling’s elite.

Prior to that, the county had merited not a mention in any roll of honour. Not a league or Provincial title did it have to its name. Not at senior level, anyway.

Throughout its early involvement with the GAA, indeed, Waterford dabbled more with Gaelic football and the closest it came to big-time hurling was as a setting for Munster and All-Ireland finals – Dungarvan was home to one of the best equipped GAA grounds in the country and its positioning along a railway line connecting to Kilkenny, Tipperary and Cork made it an ideal, neutral venue for gathering together the sport’s more illustrious tribes.

Waterford wouldn’t have lived in such company.

A victory over Kerry in 1903 brought a first-ever Munster championship match victory but over two decades would pass before they would win another provincial game. Contenders they weren’t.

The change in fortunes can be traced to the rivalry forged between two city-based clubs which were founded almost a decade apart – Erin’s Own, established in 1923 and Mount Sion, which emerged in 1932 as an outgrowth of the Christian Brothers’ school in the heart of the city. The latter, envisaged as a means to maintain sporting bonds among past-pupils, became the vital engine that drove the development of hurling in Waterford.

In fact, so swift was its rise and so great was its local dominance that by 1953 the Irish Independent newspaper featured Mount Sion as part of a series on famous football and hurling clubs.

In that lengthy piece, written by John D. Hickey, two men were singled out for special mention.

One was Pat Fanning, then the "prince of all club secretaries" and later the GAA President who oversaw the scrapping of the controversial ban on foreign games. "Pat, you know, is Mount Sion", Hickey was told.

The other was John Keane, described affectionately and admiringly as that "rare ornament of hurling".

Keane, whose playing days had only recently come to end, was a central figure in the rise of Waterford hurling in the middle decades of the twentieth century. An influential member of the county’s first Munster championship winning team in 1938, it was, 10 years later, his switch from centre back to centre forward that swung the All-Ireland final – against Dublin - in Waterford’s favour.

The 1948 All-Ireland final produced more goals than points and Keane contributed more than his share of both. Out of Waterford's total haul of 6-7, the Mount Sion-man helped himself to 3-2.

It was stunning personal performance. So much so that when the final whistle blew to confirm Waterford as first-time All-Ireland champions, it was, one newspaper reported, to Keane that many of the players and supporters emotionally turned – "to congratulate him, hug him, kiss him, cry over him, carry him in wild tribute all around Croke Park".

That’s what ‘longing on a large scale’ does to people.

We speak to Waterford 1959 All Ireland winner Austin Flynn

When Waterford returned again to those dizzy heights in the late 1950s, Keane was once more a guiding presence - this time as team trainer. After swatting aside Galway’s challenge in the semi-final – something for which they’ve developed an unerring habit in championship hurling - Waterford succumbed to Kilkenny in the 1957 All-Ireland decider.

There was nothing crushing about the defeat, however. A single point separated the teams at the end and The Irish Times gushed that Waterford’s "hurling technique, both overhead and on the ground" stood comparison with the "greatest hurling sides of the decade".

The 1959 All-Ireland success was no more than a confirmation of this.

These were Waterford’s glory days - and they didn’t last. The county would suffer another All-Ireland final defeat to Kilkenny in 1963, but after that – and the passing of a brilliant, if ageing, team – its fortunes tumbled to depths not seen since the beginning of the 20th century.

The headline statistics make for fairly bleak reading.

No senior All-Ireland has followed since the 1950s and this Sunday signals only the second final appearance in fifty-four years.

Little wonder, then, that the question of Waterford’s standing in the sport is one that gives rise to sometimes pained self-scrutiny.

In 2011, when commissioned by the county board to chart a development plan for Waterford GAA, Michael Walsh, a former player and the City Manager for Waterford Corporation, questioned the county’s claim to a place in hurling’s hierarchy. Putting it bluntly, he asked: ‘Can a county with a rich tradition genuinely call itself successful if it has failed to win a senior All Ireland in 50 years and has to go back nearly 20 years for ultimate success at underage level?’

The answer to this is, arguably, "yes". And here’s why.

To reduce a sporting record to a mere inventory of silverware is to risk a misleading impression.

Waterford's Tony Browne celebrates with John Mullane after the final whistle in the 2010 Munster Hurling Final replay ©INPHO/Cathal Noonan

For Waterford hurling can hardly be accused of standing still - at least not in the last two decades where the markers of progress have been everywhere visible: in the steady growth of the game beyond its city strongholds to the rural west of the county; in the vibrancy of its colleges and club scenes; and in the inter-county progression that has, since the late 90s, delivered four Munster senior titles and two National leagues; and, more recently, All-Ireland minor and under 21 successes in 2013 and 2016 respectively.

Add to this the truly terrific conveyer belt of gifted players the county has bestowed upon the sport – Tony Browne, John Mullane, Ken McGrath, ‘Brick’ Walsh and Austin Gleeson, anyone? –, and the almost effortless drama, on and off the field, to which they appear yearly drawn and the Waterford hurling odyssey begins to more and more resemble that of the Mayo footballers.

There’s no shame or dishonour in that.

No All-Irelands perhaps, but no shortage of heady days either.

What all this means is that the winning of an All-Ireland title this Sunday is hardly required to confirm the county’s hurling status.

All it will do is garland a tradition that has, quite clearly, been sustained and enriched over many years by remarkable efforts at many levels of the GAA in Waterford.

Not that it will ever be received in such cool or rational terms. That’s not how it happens when you’re ‘longing on a large scale’.

This article was brought to you in association with Bord Gáis Energy, proud sponsor of the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship – keep up to date and follow #HurlingToTheCore

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