Davy Fitzgerald’s postmortem following another poor Championship from Waterford’s perspective came with a cutting comment about the regime he inherited from Liam Cahill. Reflecting on another year when the Déise failed to qualify from the Munster round robin, the manager claimed that he had inherited a fragile squad at the end of 2022 with dented confidence.
“I think that was dented before I got there, to be honest with you,” he said. “The defeats in Liam’s last year definitely had an effect, I think, mentally. But I think we’ve a better understanding of the ‘why’ now. I’m hoping so. If we haven’t and if I’m not the man for the job, I won’t be staying just for the sake of being there.”
Distilled right down, Fitzgerald wants what all good coaches and managers desire, for his players to step up in the clutch moments and ultimately to make better decisions during games. To understand why things are going wrong, and be able to solve problems in real time.
Both he and selector Peter Queally have curiously used the same term, “soul-searching”, in separate interviews to describe the non-hurling work they have been doing on tapping into the players’ minds and attempting to make them more resilient, to stop them from collapsing in games.
“We need to take more ownership as players,” agreed Déise defender Mark Fitzgerald. “Maybe we didn’t do enough of that last year. With Davy I think it’s probably been one of the most professional set-ups I’ve ever seen. The way it’s run, it’s pristine, unbelievable. It’s up to us really.”
In defence of Waterford they didn’t get to play a home game in the 2023 Championship because of redevelopment work at Walsh Park. The fixture list wasn’t exactly kind to them either, pitching them in against the might of Limerick in Round 1 and then, following a battling defeat, sending them on the road to Cork just a week later. They lost that Páirc Uí Chaoimh game by nine points and were hammered by Clare, leaving them with nothing more than pride to play for against Tipperary in the final round. They did at least redeem that much with an unexpected win.
The 2024 campaign is kinder on paper at least, starting at home against Cork before a two-week break to another home game against Tipperary. If things go right Waterford could have qualification sorted before they even play Limerick.
Young defender Fitzgerald admitted that losing to Limerick in Round 1 last summer set Waterford on a downward spiral, partly because it took so much out of them. “You probably do have to empty yourself physically,” he said of playing the four-in-a-row All-Ireland winners. “They’re an unbelievable side to try to beat. You could see it during the Championship that teams who play them might then have a small dip in performance the next week.”
Waterford actually scored the same amount of times in that game as Limerick, 19, but Seamus Flanagan’s crucial goal propelled the Shannonsiders to a 1-18 to 0-19 win.
“We felt that we threw that away ourselves,” said Passage clubman Fitzgerald. “We definitely felt that we should have won that game. I wouldn’t say we lost it [qualifying from Munster] from there but to throw that away and then follow it with a bad performance against Cork, that didn’t help. Then getting a man sent off early against Clare, little things just didn’t go our way.”
It won’t help in 2024 that, along with Austin Gleeson, Waterford are expected to be without Conor Gleeson and Shane McNulty, while Carthach Daly is a long-term injury victim.
On the flipside, Waterford could have all three Bennett brothers back in the new year – Shane, Stephen and Kieran – as well as Ballygunner’s Ian Kenny and, hopefully, a fit-again Tadhg de Burca following Achilles trouble. “He’s in and around the group,” said Fitzgerald of defensive colleague and two-time All-Star de Burca.
Fitzgerald is studying in UL. He lined out in February’s Fitzgibbon Cup final win over University of Galway, securing back-to-back titles for UL. He started all of Waterford’s Championship games after that and has quickly earned the reputation of a player on whom his manager can rely. “I came in two or three years ago, under Liam Cahill the first year and Davy last year, so I’m getting on all right,” he said.
