Waterford respond to Fitzgerald's strategy

ALL-IRELAND SHC FINALTHIRTEEN WEEKS to win an All-Ireland? That's how Davy Fitzgerald would be remembered in hurling lore if Waterford manage to pull off the near impossible on September 7th.

The player coup that ousted Justin McCarthy happened fairly quickly in the wake of the abysmal 2-26 to 0-23 defeat to Clare in the Munster championship on June 1st. Fitzgerald, considered a decent manager at underage, had certainly boosted his reputation in charge of LIT in the Fitzgibbon Cup, but considering the wealth of talent at his disposal, including Joe Canning, silverware was the basic requirement.

If he walked away from inter-county management right now he would be a success after just four championship matches and 10 weeks' work, but it is his immediate effect on the training paddock that has insiders in Waterford singing his praises. Ken McGrath has already publicly stated they got the right man.

Fitzgerald brought Peter Queally and Maurice Geary on board as selectors. Queally was a smart choice considering his ear is still to the ground as a player and manager of Ballygunner. Most of the players have soldiered with him, some have been coached by him at underage, while the rest know him by reputation.

When Queally says Fitzgerald is taking Waterford forward then it can be believed: "I'd never seen a style of coaching to that intensity before. Personally, I'm very impressed with what I've seen with Davy. The players are the exact same. It is the freshness of it.

"There is no hanging around, no slackness in the session. It is bang, bang, bang. It is going the whole time. A 40-minute session would take somebody else an hour and a half. You are going very hard for that length of time."

The first task was to get them physically up to speed. Remember, just 13 weeks. This in itself is an indictment of the previous regime, and the players themselves, that they lacked the base fitness levels to compete at championship intensity.

"We haven't delved into what was done previously. I do know that in the first three weeks we came in we did really have to work hard to bring up their fitness levels to the required levels. We did a lot of heavy work, real intense training sessions in the space of three weeks. We had that luxury.

"We had a four-week period before we played Antrim and, no disrespect to Antrim, we probably didn't take our foot off the pedal coming up to the game."

What followed was a gradual improvement that eventually saw them start at a frantic enough pace against Tipperary to see off a late charge from the Munster champions. It was some distance short of the tempo we have seen from Kilkenny but Waterford are undoubtedly on an upward curve.

What else can they do to improve in such a short time span? "There is not one particular area. Davy has brought a different style of play and the more we get used to playing with that style the better we become at it. We have steadily improved.

"Rather than change our style and try to counteract Kilkenny, we have kept working on our own style. We have to come up another good 20 per cent to beat Kilkenny. That is what we are trying to do."

All the focus will be trained, initially at least, on the contrasting styles of Brian Cody and Fitzgerald on the sideline. Queally has seen Davy Fitz the Clare goalkeeper evolve into Davy Fitz the inter-county manager these past few months.

"He was very passionate when he played for Clare. His body language, you would know by looking at him that he was so hyped up, so passionate. He brings that passion to the management side of it. But in fairness he wouldn't be the first I have met like that. He has calmed down a lot too.

"When he was with teams earlier he would have been a bit explosive on the line but he is a bit steadier now. He's got more experience. He is a long time managing now. It is not just the last couple of years, he has been involved with teams all along."

This is just the fastest 13 weeks of that process.