DAVY FITZGERALD PULLED no punches in his assessment.
Last Sunday they came up two points short of Limerick after a monumental effort, pushing the pre-eminent team in the country to the wire.
Today was different, they fell flat after producing a performance devoid of energy and were chasing Cork from the off, eventually succumbing by nine points.
“It’s easy to assess the performance,” he said, “it was absolutely terrible.
“Lack of energy, lack of drive – it was just very disappointing.
“I’d love to tell you why [it was different], I just don’t know. It wasn’t the same team that lined out last week. Maybe ‘twas I got something wrong during the week, I don’t know. That desire to get to the ball in front – we knew that, from puckouts, they’d pull a lot in like Limerick and leave that space but we didn’t attack it.
“Last week, we attacked the space but we didn’t today. If you let Cork get to the ball, they’re going to hurt you.
“We have no-one to look at only ourselves. We weren’t energetic and we let them dictate everything. It wasn’t good enough.”
Fitzgerald was not keen to use a recent hectic schedule as the explanation for their loss.
“I don’t want to use excuses, Cork were better than us today. I’m sure Limerick are the same as we are – Limerick were as energetic last night as they were the previous week.
“We were beaten by ten points and they were better than us all over the field. We got back to six early in the second half and next we conceded two or three straightaway again. The drive just wasn’t there.
“I don’t know whether last week took more out of them than I thought or not. I didn’t think it did. We rested pretty much during the week. The first team only did 25 minutes on Tuesday night and we only did 50, 45 minutes on Friday night. So they should be good.”
It marked the second successive summer that Waterford have been upended by Cork in the group stages, defeated by six last year in Walsh Park and by nine today at home.
“It was the exact same as last year. Okay, we might not have been beaten by as much but we were bullied last year and the same happened us today. I don’t think Cork are 10 points better than us, to be honest with you. Today there was no doubting that.
“I’m disappointed for the fans who came down. All we can do is apologise to them. The least they deserve is that we’ll absolutely go to the well and die every single time. The lads kept trying but I still think, as a management and as players, that we’d expect more from ourselves.”
The result leaves Waterford facing an uphill task to qualify from Munster, two opening defeats ahead of encounters with Clare on 13 May and Tipperary on 28 May.
“I knew coming into the job that we had work to do. There was a lot of damage from last year emotionally and I think we fixed a certain amount of it. We have a lot of work to do. Are we out of the championship yet? No.
“I’d love to get another run, see how we get on. I’ve worked with these lads for the last four and a half, five months and they’re good lads. hat just wasn’t them today. But we can’t crib or cry about the result. We know that Cork were way better than us today.
“We’re going to have a chat now anyway. I’ve good time for them. We’ll take a bit of stick back at home, we deserve it, rightly so, but we’ll go back, reassess and we’ll get ready again. These guys will come better I’m telling you, you could see last week what they have in them. Don’t write them off. They’re very hurt up there.”