‘Everyone deserves the same chance’
WATERFORD hurling manager Páraic Fanning insisted yesterday he would not apologise for putting ‘fairness’ ahead of crowd capacity as Walsh Park prepares to welcome back Munster SHC action next month.
In February, the Munster Council, in response to some remedial work taking place at the venue, gave the green light for Waterford to host Clare (May 12) and Limerick (June 2) at their county ground, but with a capped capacity of 11,000.
In the process, it restored home advantage to Waterford, which was denied to them last summer when they had to play their two ‘home’ games against Cork and Tipperary at neutral venues. That situation was seen as a contributing factor to their wipe-out campaign in which the Déise finished bottom of the pile in Munster.
But the price for home advantage is likely to be paid by supporters who may not get tickets for the Clare and Limerick games, with both expected to be sold out as a result of Walsh Park’s modest capacity — in keeping with the Slattery Report.
However Fanning, speaking yesterday at the launch of the 2019 Renault World Games in Waterford, insisted that the ‘fairness’ of the Championship had to take priority over the entitlement of supporters.
And he hinted that had he been Waterford manager in 2018, he would have resisted the forfeit of home advantage.
‘I probably would have been a little more pushy, but I wasn’t involved last year,’ said Fanning.
‘I won’t say it was a “gimme” this time because there were processes to go through, but I’d have been very disappointed, gutted really, in the GAA if the games weren’t going to be in Walsh Park.
‘I know it’s going to be very difficult for our supporters but, looking back at what happened last year, it’s only right.
‘I have to look at it from a players’ point of view, to be selfish, in the sense that the lads have a short career in which to win something — and we have to make sure we have the same chance as everybody else.
‘Looking at an inter-county career, it can be only three or four years long, but in that period of time you have to get the best out of yourself.
‘Our lads are very ambitious and we now have the same chance as everybody else with the home games,’ added the Déise boss.
‘It’s about the structures and fairness of the Championship and the fairness is that every team is entitled to two home games and two away games. I am delighted we have that now.’
However, the other price for the restoration of home advantage is that it turns up the heat on Fanning to end Waterford’s 60-year famine in trying to land the Liam MacCarthy Cup.
The odds on that happening extended after an encouraging Allianz League campaign ended in a whimper, when they lost last month’s decider by eight points to All-Ireland champions Limerick.
It was the county’s fifth final defeat on the bounce — preceded by losses in the 2016 NHL final, the 2015 and 2016 Munster finals and the 2017 All-Ireland decider — but Fanning dismissed the theory that his players have suffered ‘mental scarring’ from so many highprofile defeats.
‘We can have no impact on previous finals as a management team, some of the players were involved in those but I don’t think there will be any mental scarring or residue from that.
‘I’d love to get to another final and see then can we get over the line, but that’s a long way off — but it’s not going to have any impact,’ insisted Fanning. The manner of that League final loss to the Treaty County has turned bookmakers stone cold on Fanning’s team — they are 12/1 seventh favourites to claim AllIreland glory — and added to the sense that Limerick are a superpower in the making. Fanning, however, does not subscribe to that and is bullish in his belief that his team are still contenders. ‘In previous years after the League people would have said the same about Tipperary, said the same about Galway, people are saying the same about Limerick now. ‘I don’t think there is as big a gap as people think and I certainly wouldn’t be one for heading into the Championship thinking we have a big gap to close. ‘I think we are there or thereabouts. I think everybody knows the teams that are in contention for the All-Ireland. I’d like to think we are one of them.’