It might be a week and a half down the road but it’s still not easy to take or come to terms with exactly what happened and what went wrong in Croke Park on September 7.
You can analyse and dress it up anyway you like but the simple fact about it is that it was a day of two extremes which cost us.
For us it was definitely the worst day ever for this team, while for Kilkenny it was their best ever day and these two extremes meeting on the one day in Croke Park spelled disaster for us.
In spite of the fact that this team has been used huge occasions in the past, we cannot get away from the fact that on this day, the biggest of their lives, the nerves and the enormity of the occasion certainly got to our players.
We had said coming into this game that we needed to continue the match by match improvement that had been shown in every game since the arrival of Davy Fitz and that most likely we would need Kilkenny to have an off day. Neither happened and the result is well known by now.
Sitting in the Cusack Stand on Sunday week last with thirteen minutes gone I was quiet happy with the way things were going. Kilkenny were leading by three points (six to three) despite the fact that we hadn’t played at all yet and Kilkenny had gotten off to a great start.
At this stage I felt that we had survived getting off to a bad start and all the possible nerves that such an occasion obviously bring and that we would know kick into the game and enjoy a good spell and bring ourselves right into this game.
OVER IN A FLASH
But in the next ten minutes that theory went out of the window and with it our hopes of a first All-Ireland victory in nearly fifty years. By the twentieth minute they had stretched their lead to six points and I was getting slightly worried. Then within two minutes Eddie Brennan flashed home two goals and we were twelve down and the writing was on the wall. Against most teams you might have some chance of coming from 12 down but not against this Kilkenny team, not a team as good as this.
At this stage we were in trouble in almost every position on the field, losing every battle. Our management needed to act to stem this tide but they waited til half-time to make those changes, by which time Kilkenny had tacked on another six points to our one leaving us with five points on the board at half-time, all of those coming from frees. By the time we returned to the pitch for the second half with a revamped team we found ourselves 17 points behind and more or less only playing for pride.
For anything good to happen for us, we needed a good start to the second half but this Kilkenny team was never going to allow that and so it proved. We said in the preview that if we were to have any chance we needed to be close going into the final quarter and hope that this would heap the pressure of the three in a row on Kilkenny and this might be to our advantage but they way it turned out they were able to coast their way to the treble throughout the second half.
Whatever did or didn’t happen to us on the day, you have to give credit where it’s due and acknowledge the simple fact that this Kilkenny side has proven itself to be one of the best hurling teams of all time. They won their four championship matches this year by an average of 17.25 points and completed the elusive three in a row by winning every game along the way and never needing the back door.
LACK OF FINAL EXPERIENCE COSTLY There is no doubt that after five previous unsuccessful attempts of getting to All-Ireland final day that the occasion did get to us but I can’t help but feel that had we made it here on one or two of those previous occasions that we would have been in a better position to give Kilkenny a game, as good and all as they are.
Above all the overriding emotion at this stage is one of extreme sympathy for everyone involved in the Waterford set up, the management, players and backroom staff.
Each and every one of them put a massive effort in to get to this day and it was awful that it all had to end so badly.
As bad as it was, it’s now history and now this bunch of players can do one of two things. They can either feel sorry for themselves and let this be the beginning of the end for this team or else they can use the devastating emotions of their dressing room at full-time in this game as motivation to pick themselves up and to do everything in their power to get back to All-Ireland Final Day with a chance to redeem themselves.
The big question now is whether or not Davy Fitzgerald will stay on as Waterford manager or not. Having changed manager in mid-season I feel that continuity is now required and that every possible angle should be covered to ensure that Davy remains at the helm.
NEED STABILITY
It must be remembered that Davy only came into the position in mid June and this is a very short space of time for any manager to instil his system and tactics on the players. How much better then would we be if we had a pre-season and a full National League Campaign under this management?
There is no doubt that facing back into the club championship over the coming weeks is not going to be easy for the players but maybe it’ll be the thing that helps them most of all.
