Dessie Hutchinson is not going to shy away from it, the objective for Waterford under Davy Fitzgerald is clear – to finally end the county’s All-Ireland wait.
Fitzgerald’s return to the south coast, where he was previously at the helm from 2008-2011, has the feel of a manager coming back a decade on to tidy up some unfinished business. Business Waterford have been trying to close the deal on since1959.
Liam Cahill’s three-year spell with Waterford fizzled out after a listless championship campaign in 2022. However, during his reign the Tipperary native led them to an All-Ireland final appearance in 2020 and they won the National League title in 2022.
Waterford beat Cork in that league final on April 2nd. Two weeks later they battled out a win over Tipperary in their Munster opener but then lost their next three games – to Limerick, Cork and Clare. Their summer fell apart in a matter of weeks.
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On July 15th Cahill stepped down and three days later he was appointed Tipp manager.
“I still think Waterford are All-Ireland contenders,” says Hutchinson. “I don’t think we became a bad team overnight or anything like that. Last summer is after happening, look we’ve a bit of freshness to look forward to now.
“But I still think we’ll be All-Ireland contenders. That’s the main aim in Waterford – to win the All-Ireland.
“As a player and a supporter in Waterford it’s an exciting time again because there’s freshness about Waterford and knowing Davy, I don’t know him that well, but from other teams and what I’ve heard he’ll set up everything in his power to help Waterford win an All-Ireland.”
Despite the progress they made under Cahill, the fall off in the team’s form during the championship, coupled with the managerial vacancy in Tipp arising once again, aligned to see him take his leave from Waterford.
“When the call came about Liam going back to Tipperary, you felt like it was going to happen, especially after him not going there last year,” adds Hutchinson. “I think we kind of expected it when we heard the news Colm Bonnar was gone from Tipperary.
“Maybe it was the right thing for that to happen because maybe we went as far as we could with Liam and things might have got a bit, ‘What do we do next?’.
“In fairness to Liam, we were after losing a Munster final, an All-Ireland final and an All-Ireland semi-final all to Limerick and then we had three bad weeks last summer and that determined how Liam’s time ended.”
Waterford’s approach to next year’s league will be closely monitored. The format of the competition has created a degree of shadowboxing, though Waterford went all in this year and ultimately won the Division One crown for the first time since 2015.
However, their subsequent championship campaign suggested it might not have been a beneficial strategy.
”We definitely wanted to win that game against Cork, and I’m delighted we did,” recalls Hutchinson. “It’s a national league medal you have in your back pocket now. There are a lot of people who don’t have that.
“Maybe the fact that championship was so close to a league finish was a hindrance. Some teams maybe didn’t go full throttle at it like we did, were minding themselves for championship.
“We probably should have enjoyed it a little bit more, maybe taken a few more days to freshen the mind before going back at it. But we didn’t do that, we went straight into the championship. Maybe we were in the same mindset for too long and probably should have taken a little bit of a break.”
Ballygunner have had an eight-week break since their Waterford SHC final win over Mount Sion in September. The current All-Ireland club champions are back out this Sunday in Walsh Park for a Munster club quarter-final against Kilruane MacDonaghs. Only last weekend Kilruane won their first Tipperary SHC in 37 years.
“Yes they are going to be celebrating but ultimately they are going to be on a huge high too,” cautions Hutchinson, Ballygunner’s joint captain.
“I don’t think what you do a day or two after a county final win is going to impact that high the following week, so I think they are still going to be on that high and really looking forward to the game.”
**Hutchinson was speaking as AIB marked their 32nd year supporting the AIB All-Ireland club championships.
