A long way off getting a rising service (4)
I believe the answer is:
afar
'a long way off' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'a rising service' is the wordplay.
'rising' says the letters should be written backwards (going up in a down clue).
'service' becomes 'raf'.
'raf' written backwards gives 'far'.
'a'+'far'='AFAR'
'getting' is the link.
(Other definitions for afar that I've seen before include "quite some distance" , "long way back" , "At a distance (literary)" , "from baseline to baseline?" , "At a distance (poetic)" .)