A man for all Seasons

Mrs Browne’s boy: Tony with his mother Esther after last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final win over Galway in Thurles. | Photo: Noel Browne

“Tony Browne to me is one of the finest hurlers that ever played the game”, he said. Sympathy would have sounded patronising; this was simply telling the truth.

Having started his 19th season with the county seniors last Sunday — and few doubted he’d be back — the man who has won seven county titles with Mount Sion is hoping he’ll end it with at least another Munster medal.

The secret to his longevity is doubtless to do with, as he says himself, good genes, and moreover a humbling commitment to looking after himself. Plus he’s possibly benefiting a bit from the fact that for many of his early years in the white & blue Waterford’s championship campaign amounted to one match.

He made his senior debut with the Decies in the 1991 League against Galway and the following year, a few months before captaining the county’s U21s to the All-Ireland, Tony came on in the last few minutes of the Munster quarter-final replay defeat by Clare at Semple Stadium, where he’s played 23 times in championship.

In ’93, of course, Waterford lost to no-hopers Kerry at Walsh Park, though mercifully Tony missed that match. He was right half-back in ’94 for the semi-final defeat by Limerick in Thurles, then came a sequence of quarter-final defeats: ’95 by Tipp in Páirc Uí Chaoimh; ’96 against the same opposition in Walsh Park, and ’97 when versus Limerick at Semple, a day when Gerald McCarthy moved him up to midfield (where he’d won his first ‘county’ with his club as an Under-16).

The dramatic events of ’98, when Tony won Hurler of the Year, started with a magnificent personal performance against Tipp at PUC and included a majestic man-of-the-match display as he inspired a first Waterford win at Croke Park for 35 years in the quarter-final with Galway — seven days after Clare part II.

The following summer he played practically on one leg in the first-round win over Limerick, and was still paying the price by the time the Munster semi-final defeat to eventual All-Ireland champions Cork came around.

The first two years of the new millennium saw Waterford’s stay in the championship last all of 70 minutes: Tipp (when he unusually lined out at wing-forward) and Limerick delivering the respective KOs.

From 2002 on has been the busiest period of his career: 38 championship games in eight seasons. Some going. It’s also been the most rewarding: three Munster titles, a National League, a hat-trick of All Stars, seven All-Ireland semi-finals and, of course, the penultimate pleasure but unmentionable ignominy of 2008.

With 53 senior championship appearances to his name (and 3-36 on his scorecard), Tony, who’ll turn 37 on July 1, will equal Tipperary legend John Doyle’s marker if he makes one more. Conceivably he could catch Clare’s Frank Lohan and Offaly’s Joe Dooley (58) before the season is out, though he’ll have to prove Davy Fitzgerald’s autumn assertion that he’s capable of hurling for another three years yet if he’s to emulate the ex-Banner ’keeper’s modern era record of 60 championship ‘caps’. (Christy Ring played senior inter-county ’til he was 43 and is top of the heap with 64, but, realistically, how long would he have lasted in contemporary times?)

Browne’s late grandfather, former Waterford mayor and TD Patrick, who passed down his grá for the game to Tony snr, was regarded as one of the greatest hurlers never to win an All-Ireland. Wouldn’t it be great if the same couldn’t be said of Fad’s grandson when he eventually hangs up his hurl.