By John Harrington

Stephen Bennett says Waterford’s All-Ireland Semi-Final replay defeat to Kilkenny was ‘devastating’.

But he’s glad he now has the opportunity to make amends by trying to help the Waterford U-21 hurlers to victory over Antrim in their Bord Gáis Energy All-Ireland semi-final on Saturday.

“When you’re so close, it’s worse than if you were to lose by five or six points and you’re thinking you didn’t deserve to win it. When you’re that close it is devastating," said Bennett.

"At least we’ve the under-21 to really focus on, which a lot of the other players don’t. We’re lucky that way.

“The first few days are always negative. But when you think back, you have to focus on the positives. Being so close. Hopefully we’ll get back now and get to an All-Ireland under-21 final which none of us have been in.”

Waterford had a late chance to bring last Saturday’s senior semi-final replay to extra-time when Pauric Mahony hit a late free, but Kilkenny goalkeeper Eoin Murphy fielded the ball brilliantly above his own cross-bar before clearing it to safety.

“We were in the dug-out saying, ‘this is over’,” said Bennett. “He’s been brilliant all year. It’s so hard for him. I know it was the last shot but we’d so many chances as well. So much stuff didn’t go right. Just one little break.

“You have to give credit to the goalkeeper as well. It was a great catch under that much pressure. That’s Kilkenny. You think they’re gone but they just come back. Like the first week when they came back from five points down…they never, like, lose.”

No-one is expecting this Waterford U-21 team to lose against Antrim on Saturday and they’re warm favourites to go on and win their first All-Ireland in the grade since 1992. Bennett insists they cannot afford to get complacent.

“You can't get caught up in that,” he says. “With the few fellas that are playing great, the likes of Austin Gleeson that are flying at senior, people just automatically think they're going to win it.

“We all know that's not the case. It's not as easy as that. We just want to get over Saturday. Hopefully just win Saturday and hopefully get into a Final.”

Regardless of how the year ends, Bennett has done well to resurrect his hurling career in the manner he has. He admits he wasn’t sure if he would be able to play at this level again when he underwent his second double-hip surgery last year.

“Yeah, sure you're always thinking that, will it ever be right? This year now it went a lot better, I got to most of the trainings and it's just kind of about managing it.

“I went back to the seniors in January and was just doing my own running with the physios and that but they've been brilliant.

“Pauric Mahony and me were actually doing it so it was grand to have a fella...the year before I was on the other side of the field running over and back by myself so at least with Pauric we were doing it together. It was just brilliant to get back in training with them and get back playing again.”