ONE WIN FROM five in this year’s hurling league, a sequence of results that mean Waterford will be operating in the second tier in next season’s revamped system.
One win from four in last year’s Munster hurling championship, a set which ensured a short summer was in store.
That’s part of a broader trend of struggles in the Munster round-robin system for Waterford teams, suffering 13 defeats from 16 games played in that format across the 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023 championships.
The stakes are clearly high then before the 2024 instalment of bigtime provincial hurling as they get set to welcome Cork to Walsh Park on Sunday.
And amidst a pattern of poor results, Davy Fitzgerld is aware of the rumours swirling around of discontent in his camp.
“I got a text the other day ‘I heard you’re fighting with this lad and that lad’. What can you do, only laugh at it. I can’t do anything else. If people around Waterford want to make up rumours, that’s fine. I’ve accepted that a long time ago. If I was beaten ten or twelve points in my league games and I was getting hammered, I’d have an issue but I don’t have that.
“Can I stop the rumours? No I can’t. You know what, let them off. If we win on 21 April or 4 May, do you think those rumours will count for much? That’s the way I look at it. If we lose, they’ll nail me no matter what the story is. I don’t really mind; I can’t do anything about it.”
He assesses their league form, the early win over Offaly preceding four straight defeats, but does highlight the injuries that robbed them of key figures.
“The first three games of the league, we were missing nine so-called starters. The last game or so, we started to get them back but they weren’t match fit. We haven’t been far away and we’ve blooded over 30 players in the league.
“Are we disappointed that we’re not winning games? Yes, but we’ve been missing lads and we’ve some lads just back. The games we lost we could quite easily have won, so we’re not 100 hundred miles off it.
“I totally understand the frustration but we need the support. Let us be judged on the Munster championship and see how we go.”
Local support is a hot topic. Thurles became Waterford’s de-facto home venue last year. The doors of Walsh Park are open once more, but the fans are not in a rush to attend with ticket sales sluggish ahead of this game.
“Last year’s Munster championship, it was my first year in and you could see the turn-outs, they were disappointing. I’m just hoping, the way we get them back in is to see that tenacity – you could see it in the league. Even though we were short a lot of players, they played hard.
“I think if we get a win or two at all you’ll see a change. But we have to work hard and do our side of things. All we can do is encourage them to come out and be with us. It’s all on 21st of April onwards. I’d love if we had 8 to 10,000 at Walsh Park, driving us on.”
After being defeated 1-21 to 1-19 by Cork in February, Fitzgerald ranked the Rebels in the top two in the country. He’s sticking to that assertion.
“They’re even better since then. You see what they did to Wexford. It’s going to be a big ask. The question is, what did we learn about them and what have we learned from last year? How smart we can be?
“Cork are a top class side. The talent they have available is massive. They have serious talent from underage. But we know what’s coming. We know the pace they have in their side, what we’ll get from their attacking third. It’s up to us to work as hard as we can to be ready for that.”
Their work was aided by a recent training camp in Portugal.
“We get four or five days to get a bit of good weather which puts you in good form. We’re also in that environment where we’re around each other all the time. The amount of different meetings and stuff that we can get done is unreal. When you’re at home, to get that time is nearly impossible.
“Player engagement is massively important where they can speak. I have to say that the environment feels unreal between management and players. As I said to them, we can’t help if there’s rumours. We can’t do anything about that. We just have to let them off. We just do what we can do here.”
Sunday is the first of four outings but it has assumed critical importance when both teams have to play Clare, current league champions, and Limerick, current All-Ireland champions, thereafter.
“I’m excited as I’ve ever been about a game. We just have to stick tight together. If we can get a victory in the first two games, we won’t be in a bad place.
“I’m glad Pat (Ryan, Cork manager) said that his whole world revolves around it because that makes two of us. So does ours. Don’t have any doubt about that. We’re in our home patch as well, we’ve got to talk to take pride in where we’re playing. We have to learn lessons from when we played them in the league and when we played them in the championship.
“We’re going to try and see can we deal with certain aspects of play they have. And trust me, they will have to deal with certain aspects of play we’ll have. This game is everything. Pat Ryan is right. This game is everything and it’s on. Let’s bring it.”
