Waterford’s worry is where the next wave of hurling talent is coming from, and when

When Brian Flannery first played for Waterford in 1998 something was stirring. He hailed from Tipperary, and had worn the blue and gold as an underage player, but Waterford was his new home and he had put down some roots. Changing allegiance felt comfortable. More than that, it was attractive. Gerald McCarthy was in his second year as manager, and there was a surge of energy and boldness running through the senior set-up. There was grounded optimism.

That year, they forced Clare to a replay in the Munster final and reached Croke Park for the first time in 35 years. The modern history of Waterford hurling started then. They needed to see themselves as contenders first before anybody else would countenance the idea. Over the last quarter of a century that feeling has waxed and waned but it has been resilient too. Their self-image was threatened by bad seasons that inevitably visited them, but not defaced.

“The success of Waterford hurling for the last 25 years has been to be a competitive Division One county, year-in, year-out,” says Flannery. “Okay, no All-Ireland won [at senior level] but Waterford have been competitive more or less every year. To me, that is success for a county that does have disadvantages. Hasn’t got the playing numbers of other counties. Soccer is a huge competitor sport, particularly in the towns and city.

“Waterford is a hurling underdog to start with. That’s why, in general, Waterford needs to overachieve. But looking at it for the last few years, we’re not even maximising what we have, that’s the problem.”

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The biggest concern for Waterford is not their ongoing mud-wrestle with the round-robin system in Munster (one win from 14 matches) but where they’re going to be in five years’ time? How competitive will they be?

Waterford’s results at underage level over a sustained period of time are alarming: since 2015 they have played 26 minor championship matches and won just five of them. They won the under-21 All-Ireland in 2016 but since then their record in that grade is one victory from 12 games; that win came against Kerry.

In his role as a columnist with the Munster Express and a match analyst with WLR, Flannery goes to all Waterford games, at every grade. The rupture in the supply line is plain to see.

“I’ve watched the Waterford minors getting bet by 13 points and the Waterford under-20s getting bet by 14 points. And you could only come away depressed – maybe that’s too strong a word, it’s only sport. But you don’t want to see kids going down to Páirc Uí Chaoimh and Thurles and getting a trimming. We shouldn’t be losing to Clare by 14 points at under-20.

“The last thing Croke Park needs is another hurling county to fall off a cliff, like Offaly did. That’s not even being whispered down here, it’s being spoken about openly. What happened to Offaly could happen to us because of what’s happening with underage and the talent coming through.”

It is not hard to trace the roots of the really good Waterford teams of the last quarter of a century. The late 1990s team was based on the All-Ireland winning under-21s of 1992 and the minor team that reached the All-Ireland final in the same year. On the Waterford panel that reached the 2017 senior final were 16 players who had won two Dr Harty Cups with De La Salle, and an All-Ireland colleges title.

That 2017 group had a lot of players in common with the 2020 panel that also reached a senior final: those teams were framed by the All-Ireland winning minors of 2013 and the All-Ireland winning under-21s of three years later. A Venn diagram of that group would have included players from Dungarvan Colleges too, a west Waterford amalgamation that were All-Ireland winners a decade ago.

None of it was a mystery. All of those Waterford seniors had come from readily identifiable sources, propelled by success as they climbed through the grades. So, where is the next wave coming from?

In the end, it was regeneration that did for Offaly. The team that contested the 2000 All-Ireland final was tired and in various stages of decay. By the time Kilkenny annihilated Offaly by 31 points, five years later, just two players remained from the All-Ireland final team. Offaly had been serial contenders for 20 years but at underage level they had ceased producing competitive teams. The consequences were inescapable.

Waterford have a strong senior panel right now, and without much churn, that will still be the case for the next two or three years, at least. But the pillar players on the current team are in the early autumn of their careers: Jamie Barron is in his 11th season; Austin Gleeson, Tadhg de Burca and Stephen Bennett are in their 10th seasons.

Dessie Hutchinson, Conor Prunty, Conor Gleeson and Colin Dunford are all in their late 20s, and in their prime still, but there has only been a trickle of breakthrough players since Waterford appeared in the 2020 All-Ireland final.

“You have a group of players who are all going to go within a short space of time of each other,” says Flannery. “When you look at the vacuum behind them, you’d have to be worried.”

Good foundation work is being done. A couple of years ago Jason Ryan, the former Wexford and Kildare football manager, led a hugely impressive review of the academy structures, and along with a committed subcommittee, instituted reforms.

“We’ve gone from a situation where – allegedly – people didn’t want to get involved with development squads to a situation where just short of 100 adults contributed to underage squads last year,” says Ryan. “It’s fabulous, the number of people. The interest is just massive. The number of players is huge.”

The pandemic disrupted their work a little, but it is on a solid footing now. By its nature, though, development work can’t be rushed or accelerated. It doesn’t respond to a brewing emergency. It is 10 years since Cork development squads were finally enveloped in best practice, and Cork have still not reaped a senior All-Ireland from that work. You must wait.

For Ryan and his committee and all the coaches who have volunteered, they must carry on, regardless of the weather systems around them. “The work that’s going on now, we’re not going to know how effective it is for a number of years. But if you’re in the middle of an under-14 management team, doing the work, I can tell you there’s no doom and gloom about Waterford hurling there.

“We’re in the infancy stages. We’re in it long enough to be able to see faults [in our approach] and try to correct them, but we’re not in it long enough where we’re thinking, ‘Jesus, we have this cracked.’ There’s plenty of work to be done.”

Part of it is a numbers game. Waterford have just 56 clubs, which is comparable with Offaly (61) and Laois (46). Both of those counties slipped out of the Leinster championship years ago and at times have felt banished.

In their ranks Waterford have one of the most powerful clubs in the country but Ballygunner’s success has not been an energy source for the Waterford team in recent seasons. Just two Ballygunner players started the 2020 All-Ireland final; only one started against Cork a fortnight ago.

Yet their dominance of the local scene is overwhelming. At senior level they’re on a 48-match unbeaten run and gearing up for 10 senior titles in a row. Their average winning margin in last year’s championship was 12 points. All Ballygunner can do is mind their own business.

“Ballygunner have separated themselves from everybody else, at all levels pretty much,” says Flannery. “That’s one of the issues: one club domination. I don’t know of any county where that has been a precursor to intercounty success.”

In other respects, Waterford GAA is going well. The first phase of the ambitious Walsh Park redevelopment will be completed in late July, at a cost of €3.4 million. In recent months the county board ran a hugely successful draw for a house in Dungarvan, selling a staggering 15,000 tickets at €100 a pop, and harvesting a profit of over €700,000. All of that work is laudable and progressive and necessary.

Whatever happens on Saturday in Thurles against Clare, though, their senior hurling team is in a race against time. They’re not in front. Too much ground has been lost.