Waterford delighting in their rivals’ sad malaise
CORK hurling folk should not really view Waterford as opponents today, but rather as one of those trick mirrors at a fun-fair which transform the handsome into the hideous.
Because no other county has quite captured the truly ghoulish nature of Cork’s fall from arrogant grace quite like the Déise.
There was a time when if Cork were not feeling sorry for their south-eastern neighbours – never better encapsulated than when Ray Cummins’ humanity got the better of him in the 1982 Munster final – hand-passing the ball over the bar rather than choosing to score what would have been their sixth goal – they were sending missionaries across the border in the form of the McCarthys, Gerald and Justin.
It was hard to imagine that Waterford could ever dwarf their neighbours for a sustained period like they have for the last decade.
Cork will travel to Walsh Park today in the knowledge that over the last 10 years they have won just three of their previous 16 League and Championship meetings with their neighbours − and that is not the only number that should haunt.
The Déise have outperformed them spectacularly at underage level – not just in winning AllIreland minor and under-21 titles in that time, but on a sustained basis.
In the last 10 years, Waterford have reached five Munster minor finals in comparison to Cork’s two.
In the same period of time they have won four Munster colleges finals, while Cork have drawn a blank.
Above all, Waterford have defied Cork’s brutish size to bully them with a slingshot. The Déise draw their players from 50 clubs – 209 less than the number affiliated across the border.
The lesson in that is not that size doesn’t matter but surely that good governance does.
Waterford’s revival has been facilitated on the focus placed on underage development – helped in part by the reorganisation at college level which has been a driving force – whereas in contrast. Cork have stagnated with the only visible development limited to bricks and mortar.
To be fair that is not entirely true and the work that has been done there is beginning to show at underage level where they are stirring again, but they are still left to play catch-up for the bones of another generation.