Bennett has sights set on ending Waterford’s losing streak
FROM the outside looking in, Waterford were one of the stories of the hurling championship.
At the start of his reign, their rookie manager Liam Cahill took bold steps, jettisoning some high-profile players. And after failing to win a championship game in two whole seasons, and looking at their third manager in as many campaigns, they found their feet and went all the way to an All-Ireland final.
Along the way they ousted Cork and produced a superb second-half performance against Kilkenny in the All-Ireland semi-final in Croke Park, for just their third win over the Cats in championship history.
Limerick proved a bridge too far in the final but, all things considered, it felt like reaching the decider having not won a championship game since the 2017 All-Ireland semi-final was a strong innings. Star forward Stephen Bennett, however, sees it slightly differently.
“First of all, I suppose we were very disappointed,” Bennett (right) says of the final. “We still are. We thought we didn’t give a good account of ourselves really, we missed a lot of goal chances at the start maybe and the second half then when we were six, seven or eight points down there was a good few times we could have put the ball over the bar.
“But we were maybe gone past it at that stage, and tried to force goals in the second half. But, in fairness to Limerick, they were very good. They went the season unbeaten so they obviously deserved to win it. It was a grand year but it was disappointing because we lost a Munster final and the All-Ireland final as well. So we are just looking forward to the year ahead.”
The Ballysaggart man goes on to point out that Waterford’s recent record in finals leaves a lot to be desired. They lost two finals this year to go with league final defeats in 2016 and ’19, either side of the All-Ireland loss in 2017. There were also Munster final losses in 2015 and ’16.
“I suppose the Kilkenny game was a favourite for a lot of us. For the people of Waterford, for the last two years we hadn’t won a game, it was fairly bleak so it was nice to give the supporters something to watch, especially in these times. They had something to focus on and look forward to and something to talk about and it did bring a lot of joy back into the county. Now we have to focus on being consistent. There’s no point in going out and doing that and losing all the games the next year. We have to keep winning games, get back to finals and kind of win them this year. Like, we have lost an awful lot of finals, since I’ve been playing anyway, and even Waterford in general. We’ve lost a lot of them so we need to try and get back competitive and win something, starting with the league.”
Stephen and Kieran will be joined by brother Shane on the Waterford panel this year. Work brought him to Louth for a large part of 2021, but a change in circumstances means he’s back at home. And Bennett is hoping his brother can help the Déise close the gap on market leaders Limerick.
“I don’t know about all other counties, because Galway nearly bet them,” continues Bennett, who was picking up his PwC GAA/GPA award for his brilliant performance in the semi-final.
“They are that bit ahead of most teams at the moment. The bench they bring on actually raises the levels again. You’ll always see them coming on and scoring a point, two points, or a goal.
“They know how they are playing too. They have a good system in place, with the half-forwards coming out. They don’t panic. Other teams maybe get the ball and they are panicking and trying to work it out, they’re just a little bit more composed at the moment than a lot of teams, in fairness to them.
“They’ll hold the ball in the backline, pass it around, they’ll wait for space and then sure the ball that the forwards get in is top-class. They are that bit ahead of everyone so it is up to everyone to catch them.”