It seems the last thing Stephen Bennett has any qualms about is facing up to Waterford’s daunting prospects just two days before their biggest hurling game so far this season. Set against his bigger picture of life, it’s all small talk anyway.
And so it is that Bennett pops up on a Zoom call at lunchtime on Thursday, fresh from collecting his GPA-PwC hurler of the month award for April.
While happy to discuss his own form that earned him the award, he’s not shying away from what Waterford need to do against Cork on Saturday before finishing up their round-robin games away to Limerick eight days later.
“I don’t see it as a big issue. People make big deals of it, but talking was never an issue for me,” he says. “And I don’t over-think things, I like to keep busy. We’ll go down training later on, then think about Saturday. Everyone is different, has their own routine.
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“We have to beat Cork, and obviously Cork are probably the in-form team along with Limerick. You saw what Limerick did to Clare the other day, which was frightening, and Cork beat Limerick. So we just need to focus on getting a massive performance on Saturday now.”
It is a considerable challenge, nonetheless. Waterford have never progressed from the round-robin of the Munster hurling championship. After losing to Clare and drawing with Tipperary, they need a result on Saturday. Bennett hit an astonishing 4-22 in those two games – 3-12 against Clare, then 1-10 against Tipp – and even though Waterford eclipsed the 30-point mark in both games, they still didn’t win.
“I think we had 40 shots from play against Tipp and we scored 18 of them. We had 22 missed shots, they had six wides. We need to work on our mistakes but still, the two games have been exciting and the crowds have been brilliant. It’s great to get the support back. It was excellent again against Tipp.”
He’s somewhat insulated from any rising Waterford tension, living in Curraglass, just inside the Cork border, where he is the principal of Kilmagner National School. He’s also just back in school this week after two month’s paternity leave following the birth of his daughter Mila Rose in March.
“The first few years, you think hurling is the most important thing ever. Realistically, as you get older, it doesn’t really matter. It’s a hobby, it’s sport. We’re doing it for fun. I’m not playing it down either, we really want to win Munster, win the All-Ireland, but it’s great to have other things in life.”
Before Waterford’s game against Cork on Saturday evening, he’ll be with the Kilmagner first communion class that morning. He also still teaches directly in the Assisted Learning Class (ALC).
[ Waterford’s rising intensity cancelled out Tipperary’s clinical shooting displayOpens in new window ]
“The kids are brilliant. You come in Monday morning, you have seven- and eight-year-olds looking up at you, they don’t care about losing a match on Sunday. It definitely helps with perspective, I do think the job helps.
“We have a little girl now at home as well for the last eight weeks. I prefer to keep busy. If I was at home doing nothing, that’s when I’d start thinking. I think it’s nearly better off to just have so much on that you don’t even know what you’re doing, only saying, ‘What are we doing next?’ I suppose it’s enjoyable to have a bit of a balance.”
At 30, Bennett has also been open about the chronic hip injuries which have curtailed his training in recent years, although he’s rarely missed the big championship showdowns.
“I was probably lucky enough in that for years I never tore a muscle. It’s probably the last three years I suppose I’ve just been training different, doing different drills or a lot of running up and down the sideline. I suppose it’s just about being smarter and trying to time it right for the games.
“Some players are lucky, some are unlucky. I’m actually probably lucky enough that in the last few years, I think I’ve played all the championship games and been available since 2019. But I don’t think there’s anyone playing inter-county around this time without any sort of niggles. You just play through, everyone is sore after these games.
“It’s no different really to what the rest of them are doing. Ice baths, recovery boots, a load of physio, whatever. You’d get back moving again maybe on the Thursday or Friday, and go on from there.
“Obviously you’d like to be doing more in training, pushing yourself. You probably feel like you’re not improving or you can’t really improve. So it’s just about trying to show everything you have when you get the matches.”
Only two guaranteed matches left, and unless Waterford show something big it’s another championship exit before the month of June.
“There have been some years we haven’t been good enough, other years where we’ve been really unlucky. Definitely some years where you’d be thinking, ‘How in God’s name are we not getting through here?’
“But I don’t really think players are thinking about the round-robin history, to be honest with you. There’s a lot of new lads in fairness – Seán Walsh, Seán Mackey, all these lads, Aaron O’Neill’s first year – there’s loads of them. They have no experience of saying ‘Waterford never got out’.
“You see the good teams getting all these younger players in and that’s what we need to do. We need to start getting loads of them young players in for Waterford, getting them through and getting them into the scene a bit quicker.”
