Darragh Fives
By John Harrington
Darragh Fives has returned to light training with the Waterford hurlers but it is still unclear whether or not he will be fit to play in the Munster Final against Tipperary on July 10.
Speaking last night, Waterford manager Derek McGrath expressed his hope that the defender will be able to test out his injured quad at another training session on Saturday.
“Yeah he's done a bit of running in the interim, over the weekend,” said McGrath “Only half pace or three-quarter pace. He hasn't sprinted yet. We played a bit of a mixed match amongst ourselves Sunday morning and he took no part in that. We're playing our own under-21s tomorrow night. We're training Friday night and Saturday so we're hoping that Saturday he'll test it out and see how it goes.”
Regardless of whether they win or lose against Tipperary, Waterford will still be in the Championship. But McGrath does think that means they should err on the side of caution when making a final decision on Fives’ fitness for the Munster Final.
“Probably a sensible manager should do that I suppose,” he said. “I think the Munster Championship is important, that we try and get our best team on the field. He's part of that. I'm not really making much sense in that argument but we should go all out. If he's right, he's right obviously.
“If he's not, if we're told by Conor (McCarthy) and the lads in terms of the physio that he can't play on the Friday he won't play any part but we'd be very anxious to ensure that he plays but it's a good question, it's a good point. But for me, we like to have our best team on the field if we could against Tipperary. I think we need everyone to be competitive.”
Apart from long term casualty, Eddie Barrett, Fives is Waterford’s only injury worry for the Munster Final as Austin Gleeson has recovered from a bruised knee.
After losing to Tipperary in the Munster Final in Semple Stadium, Thurles, last year, Waterford have opted for the neutral venue of the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick this time around. They won’t be going for a run-out at the venue the week before the game this time though, because it turns out that McGrath is a superstitious man.
“No, we had no run out, it's not our intention either,” he said. “We're not going to go down there. We actually went down, silly enough, we went to Thurles in the run up to the Munster final having been there loads of times. I'm wicked for the piseogs so I'm going to stay away from Limerick in advance of it.
“Look, we played well enough down there in the league, we played Limerick there in the Waterford Crystal Cup, we were beaten comprehensively, we're just hoping people will go down there and give us every support that we feel the team deserves. It's going to be a massive challenge. We're looking forward to it.”
