National Hurling League Semi-finals: Tom Humphrieshears from the Wexford custodian about new dawns, new attitudes and the importance of big men.

In Wexford Park back in February a little shudder ran around the ground just after the home side's anaemic collapse to Waterford in their first league game of the year. Word had came through from Parnell Park that Dublin, Wexford's Leinster semi-final opponents, had drawn with Kilkenny. There was a collective shaking of heads and sucking in of breath.

Every recent league campaign seemed to bring a chastening defeat by a bigger power. Spring 12 months previously Cork had done the drubbing, helping Wexford to a mortifying relegation-play-off ordeal with Laois. This time hope was surrendering early.

The prospect of another hard season after last year's humiliating fold-up against Clare seemed too much to bear as the summer of Liam Griffin's revolution grew ever more distant in the rear-view mirror.

Wexford, who carry so much goodwill, had looked disorganised and laden with doubt. John Meyler, a man not given to producing teams bearing those qualities, said all they needed was more work on their hurling.

We doubted that. Waterford looked like another species that afternoon. Another dimension to their physiques and to their hurling. We came away grinning at Waterford's eternal capacity to start every hurling year in the snug at the last-chance saloon.

As for Leinster, the only novelty resided in wondering who would get to stay neck and neck with Kilkenny till the anthem was done. Meyler's team spent the rest of the league proving him right though. Wexford's only defeat since then has been a two-point reverse to Cork. Their deeds include a clinically merciless 34-point hammering of Down. Last Sunday they consolidated the impression of relentless forward movement with their first league win over Galway since the 1989/90 season.

"I suppose," says Damien Fitzhenry, "that what was said at the time of the Waterford game was true. We just felt we needed the bit of hurling. We'd been training since November 19th but it was all short evenings and we were taking care of the fitness end of things. Everyone forgot we had 16 wides that day too."

WHAT IMPRESSED ANDsurprised last Sunday was the confidence of Wexford's play. Facing a Galway side managed by a force of nature, a Galway team needing prolonged league engagement, a Galway side which annexed a three-point lead early on, Wexford just kept the faith.

All this was achieved without the presence of Rory McCarthy (holidays), Mossy Mahon (lost to soccer) and several other players laid low by injury or failed appetite. It was done with Darren Stamp at full forward and Declan Ruth at full back.

Wexford looked to have not just confidence but balance too. From number 15 back they defended well, blocking and hooking heroically. Damien Fitzhenry's puck-outs found the hand of Stephen Nolan many more times than Ger Loughnane will have been comfortable with and Wexford, who in recent seasons have looked so worryingly lightweight, suddenly looked beefy and confident and capable of throwing the ball around or taking the modh díreach. Wexford, a county whose iconography is littered with big men, seem on the verge of upgrading themselves to the required physicality of the modern game. Even against Waterford.

"You look at any team that is going well," says Fitzhenry, "and they have their big men. Kilkenny have Henry Shefflin and Martin Comerford. They're big men and besides all the other things they bring they'll win lots of 50-50 ball. What team isn't looking for players like that?"

FROM FITZHENRYthere is a certain philosophical distance from the mood swings which beset Wexford hurling folk. He made his Wexford debut back in 1993 in a National Hurling League quarter-final against Westmeath. They went on to a National League final that year, losing to Cork following two replays. Since then he has seen every sort of phenomenon, including an All-Ireland and a famine of league success which means Sunday's is the first semi-final Wexford have contested in 11 years.

He has seen more dawns than a sleepless rooster. The advent of John Meyler has been welcome but Fitzhenry is old school.

"It's good. There's no doubt about it that it's good. But sure look, it's hard to put a finger on it. John is putting in a huge effort. Lads see that. They see him driving up from Cork. He took to the lads quickly and the lads have taken to him. Everyone decided to put their shoulder behind the wheel.

"We have a new physical trainer (Pádraig Murphy, of RTÉ fame) and that is working well. You'd say that to any of the physical trainers we've had for the last 10 years though and they'd say what was wrong with what they were doing. It's the attitude of players that's the difference. You have to get everyone pulling together."

This past winter Wexford have emphasised the work in the weights room a little more steadily than in the past. Fitzhenry himself is noticeably trimmer and quicker on his feet, and some of the saves he pulled off last Sunday were comparable with the best of his career. Himself, he feels he has caught the wave.

"You know that when you start wondering why you're going training or if you have to go that then is the time to give up. When we came back I think everyone said they were going to give it everything this year.

"We got a fairly strict diet programme and I stuck to it. I've lost a few pounds all right and done some weights work but like the rest of the lads I said that it would be 100 per cent this year so when you are 32 or 33 looking after yourself properly starts to come into it."

The reward for the transformation in Wexford's outlook is a semi-final tomorrow with Kilkenny. Some strands of conventional wisdom might counsel against risking the sort of setback Kilkenny are capable of inflicting on teams at this time of year.

FOR WEXFORD THOUGHit is all gravy. They needed the cut and thrust of competitive league play-off action, and as Fitzhenry says, if you are going to be serious about getting to the semi-finals or finals of any national competition "Kilkenny are always going to be there. You're hurling this time of the year, you expect to be meeting them and matching yourself against them."

They travel to Thurles tomorrow adhering to Meyler's philosophy of the short term, taking each game on its own merits, hewing what they can out of each new circumstance.

The summer is a long time away in hurling terms and nothing stands still, as Wexford's journey through the league has proved.

Fitzhenry, the faithful custodian, has seen it all come and go. He is too modest to comment on the general structures of Wexford hurling and whatever impact the senior team might have, but he notes that 11 years on from that fabled September, George O'Connor is the county hurling development officer and the county minors this year are looked after by Billy Byrne, Tom Dempsey and Liam Dunne.

"There's a lot of fellas out there who were seven, eight or nine when that All-Ireland was won. They spent a lot of time looking up at fellas. Now it's their time.

"I can't speak for the state of the whole of Wexford hurling but I'd say the hunger is still there. From the top down the hunger would be there."