Neither Waterford’s victory over Tipperary last Sunday nor the manner of it should have come as any big surprise…

Before the game, the media experts were going on about Waterford’s inconsistency and whether they were capable of winning two Munster championship games in a row. Yet the Déise have been probably the most consistent team in Munster over the last five years, always there or thereabouts in all their games. They have played eight times in the Munster championship under Justin McCarthy and have o lost only once. Collective media amnesia appears to have set in over 2002, when Waterford beat both Cork and Tipperary on their way to the provincial title. These are the same media experts who seem to think that the Déise never appeared in three consecutive Munster finals before.

After last Sunday’s game, the media commentators focused on the unfamiliar resolve shown by Waterford as they clawed their way back from the edge of the abyss and then shut out Tipp in those nerve-jangling closing minutes. Now, while it may be fashionable to decry the relevance of the National Hurling League to the goings on in the championship, the fact is that the same resolve was in evidence as the Suirsiders held out against all the odds earlier this year in their away League games against both of last year’s All-Ireland finalists. And, of course, they also hauled back an eight-point deficit to force a draw (the result they needed) in the League against a Tipperary team which played much better (for most of the match) than they did last Sunday.

People are now searching for the source of this new edge in the approach of the Waterford hurlers. Some are pointing the finger at Nicky Cashin, who has been deeply involved in the production line which has generated many generations of teak-tough hurlers from St. Kieran’s College in Kilkenny. However, An Moltóir is inclined to look elsewhere. A recurring feature of the Waterford hurling team over the last few years has been their tendency to make whirlwind starts and then fade away as the game progressed. Ken Hogan remarked last Sunday how most of his team felt rather flat entering the last ten minutes of the game. Hogan blamed a lack of freshness due to his players’ involvement in the Tipperary championship. Perhaps he might consider instead the fact that the person who is now training his charges is the same person who was training Waterford over the last five or six years.

By contrast, under Gerry Fitzpatrick’s tutelage, the Déise hurlers have looked exceptionally strong and fit this year. They lasted the pace right to the end in their League games against Kilkenny and Cork. They ran through Tipperary as if they weren’t there in the closing stages of the League game in Thurles. They were still going strong when the referee finally put Clare out of their misery in their first-round Munster championship game. And, in the toughest game they have played this year, they showed both the mental and physical toughness to close Tipperary out without fouling them in the hectic final moments in Cork last Sunday.

The match statistics show that Waterford deserved their win, even if only by a small margin. They were slightly ahead of Tipperary in the number of times they played the ball – 147 to 133. They were also slightly ahead in terms of chances missed (and therefore created) – 19 to 15 (this includes stops made by goalies and shots which fell short of their target). They say that the strength of most hurling teams is built around their halfback line, and this is where Waterford really scored last Sunday. Their three halfbacks played the ball 39 times between them compared with just 23 plays by their Tipp counterparts. Ken McGrath’s 14 plays contrasted with just five for Diarmuid Fitzgerald (including just one – a short flick – after the change of ends). However, Waterford’s busiest player was wingback Brian Phelan who played the ball 17 times (ten in the second half, including three decisive interventions in the closing minutes).

The dominance of the Waterford halfback line may help explain why the Tipperary fullbacks were much busier than their Déise counterparts. The four Tipperary fullbacks played the ball 27 times compared with just 17 for the Waterford inside men. However, another major factor in how little ball was played by the Déise fullbacks was the continued ability of Eoin Kelly to get possession ahead of them. This is the first time since An Moltóir started doing this kind of analysis that a corner forward emerged as his side’s busiest player. This time, Eoin Kelly led the way with 13 plays, ahead of Paul Curran, Paul Kelly and Colin Morrissey with eleven each and Benny Dunne with ten.

An interesting feature of the game was that it included 28 ground strokes – twice the number witnessed in the previous week’s clash between Cork and Limerick. Another aspect of the game which received much media publicity was Eoin Kelly’s point that never was. However, Tipperary fans should also be aware that Colm Morrissey’s goal was entirely illegal, as the Tipp man clearly threw the ball forward onto the ground before catching it again and kicking it past Stephen Brenner in the Waterford goal. Ironically, in his column in the ‘Sunday Tribune’ earlier in the day, Liam Griffin drew attention to the growing tendency to do this in modern hurling (Brian Lohan has been doing it for years).

As An Moltóir has argued before, there is little point in speculating how the Munster final will work out, because the media pundits rarely get such musings right. However, for those who like picking through the entrails, it may be worth noting that the last time Waterford played in three consecutive Munster finals, they won the first (1957), lost the second (1958) and won the third (1959). Furthermore, on the third occasion they went on to win the All-Ireland. Could history repeat itself this year?