More than anything Waterford are taking confidence from the manner of victory over Dublin in Sunday’s All-Ireland quarter-final.
In the 10 minutes after halftime they outscored Ger Cunningham’s side 1-5 to 0-1 to build a six-point lead.
Cunningham responded by introducing Peter Kelly, who instantly enhanced Conal Keaney's imprint on proceedings as Dublin called on every ounce of their experience.
Maurice Shanahan frees kept bisecting the posts, before Austin Gleeson's tremendous third point made it 1-19 to 0-15. But seconds later Dublin scored their goal when the sliotar weaved its way from Kelly to Keaney, and on to Ryan O'Dywer via Joey Boland, before finally landing on the stick of Mark Schutte, whose brilliant strike rattled the net.
Beautiful sideline cut
Waterford readjusted. Gleeson, now firmly in midfield, pointed with a beautiful sideline cut. Dublin responded through two Dotsy O’Callaghan scores but Shanahan’s goal killed the game off.
Faced with adversity, Waterford kept thinking, kept trusting their hurling ability and their system.
"It's probably the approach Derek [McGrath] has instilled in us," said corner back Noel Connors. "We have embraced that as a team, it is very much about us rectifying issues. We are mature enough to rectify issues ourselves and I don't think that's going to change."
That ability to react is seen as the only way they can overcome Kilkenny on August 9th.
“Obviously a massive task ahead of us,” Connors continued. “Kilkenny are the ultimate team in the last few years. We are going up to Croke Park to enjoy it and perform for ourselves and our families and everyone that is involved with us.
“We are really looking forward to it to be honest.”
That attitude, it’s hoped, will be enough to avoid the carnage of the 2008 All-Ireland final when they did everything besides hurl in the opening exchanges.
“The only pressure is the pressure that you put on yourself,” said McGrath, leaning against the wall in Semple Stadium as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “We are going up to Croke Park and we are going to be as competitive as we can be against a force that seem to be able to cope with these five-week breaks better than anyone else.
“It is great to look forward for the people of Waterford, a semi-final against Kilkenny. There will be a bit of banter in the coming weeks.
“We can learn a lot from Kilkenny and their whole approach, their absolute savagery and ravenous nature when it comes to winning and their humility when they win.”
It was put to McGrath that last winter he would accept a league title and brave All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Kilkenny.
“I wouldn’t like to put a stop to it at this stage, the year we have from 1B, going unbeaten all the way through the league and winning the league.
“I think people in the aftermath of this display will look at the Tipperary display a little closer. With 67 minutes gone there were three points in it and we felt there was a lot of good elements to our play in the Tipp game and we took them and tweaked them a little. It’s a massive challenge but one we are looking forward to.”
Recent destruction
A more recent destruction of a Waterford side by Kilkenny, the league meeting at Nowlan Park in 2014, is mentioned.
“I think that is a good parallel to bring forward, given that was the last competitive game we played against Kilkenny, and we were humbled by 25 points or something. We had some fairly strong words to say in the dressing-room after that, not looking for faults but just looking at what direction we wanted to go and we had an idea as a management, myself and Dan [Shanahan] in particular, where we wanted to go into the future. So it is great and massive achievement where the boys are in an All-Ireland semi-final.”
Their major injury concern is Connors, who left Thurles on crutches Saturday night after sustaining a severe dead leg.
“Please God everything will be alright,” Connors said. “I got a knee in it early on but you have to get back to training as soon as possible and recover as much as possible.”
