Justin McCarthy and his Waterford management team conducted an interesting – but ultimately flawed – experiment at Semple Stadium today, concludes An Fear Rua …

The notion being canvassed was that you can win a Munster senior hurling championship game without bothering to include a full-back line in your team, or at least without a full-back. After today’s outcome, Justin and the lads are working on some simpler projects – for example, pigs are expected to be seen being encouraged to fly over the Hill of Ballybricken again … and an attempt is to be made to revive the Dodo using some DNA material discovered in the depths of the copper mines at Stradbally. Problem is, it may not be a Dodo but some of the remains of Larry Murphy, the famous ‘Missing Postman” from the Thirties.

That it took only thirty seconds of play, and a sprightly Joe Deane goal, to expose this fallacious nonsense made the experience even more galling for Waterford supporters. For, while names likely Hartley and Feeney may have appeared on the match programme… during vital periods of this game, it was as if the entire Waterford full back line had remained on the team bus. As a faithful servant of Waterford hurling over a good number of years, Hartley is to be commended for his courage – or was it foolhardiness – in accepting this poisoned challenge. The real criticism must be reserved for the men who passed the cup to him, and who persisted with this foolishness, long after it was apparent that the experiment was a failure.

The major source of consolation for Waterford out of this game is that, in the end, they were beaten literally by a single puck of the ball - that devastatingly early Joe Deane goal. That score put Cork into a period of early dominance that looked like they were going to put the game beyond the reach of the Deise. Instead, inspired by players like Captain Kelly, Browne, McGrath, Flynn and Shanahan, by the half-time whistle it was Waterford who were dominating and Cork on the ropes.

All that good work was undone within minutes of the resumption when Flynn missed an easy free to put Waterford further ahead, play switched rapidly to the other end, Hartley fumbled an easy clearance and the hitherto quiescent Brian Corcoran nipped in for a vital goal. In terms of morale for both teams, that rapid fire sequence was probably the real turning point of the game.

In the days before the new championship format, today’s result would have been just another addition to that grim catalogue of ‘what-might-have-beens’ in Waterford hurling lore. Instead, it may be seen as a very useful staging post on what is still a long road to September. The fact is, that even minus a full-back line, they went close to beating the All Ireland champions. Today’s outcome indicates that there are greater championship achievements in sight for both teams. It underlines that the 2005 championship is far from being a two horse race and, on the contrary, is much more open than in recent years. Clare, Tipperary and Limerick – apart from Waterford – will have taken heart from this weekend’s games. Not so much from the results, but from the way their teams performed, and especially their key players.

However, for Waterford to achieve that burning ambition of carrying the McCarthy Cup across the Edmund Rice bridge, two things need to happen. They need to produce a full-blooded fifteen-player performance throughout the entirety of their games and not just rely on a handful of star performers to see them through. Secondly, Justin needs to think about – and fix – that full back line problem pronto.