By John Harrington

Waterford hurling team manager Davy Fitzgerald has dismissed suggestions he doesn’t have a happy camp of hurlers as they prepare for their Munster SHC first round clash with Cork on Sunday.

The Deise won just one match from five in the League this year but Fitzgerald doesn’t believe that bare statistic tells the full story.

“I got a text the other day ‘I heard you’re fighting with this lad and that lad’”, said Fitzgerald.

“What can you do, only laugh at it. I can’t do anything else. If people around Waterford want to make up rumours, that’s fine. I’ve accepted that a long time ago.

“If I was beaten ten or twelve points in my league games and I was getting hammered, I’d have an issue but I don’t have that. The first three games of the league, we were missing nine so-called starters that will be there or thereabouts.

“The last game or so, we started to get them back but they weren’t match fit. We haven’t been far away and we’ve blooded over 30 players in the league. I’m happy with that. Can I stop the rumours? No I can’t.

“You know what, let them off. If we win on April 21 or May 5, do you think those rumours will count for much? That’s the way I look at it. If we lose, they’ll nail me no matter what the story is. I don’t really mind; I can’t do anything about it.”

Waterford have home advantage for Sunday’s clash with Cork and Fitzgerald hopes the county’s supporters will turn out in force for it after a League campaign of low attendances at Walsh Park.

“Last year’s Munster championship, it was my first year in and you could see the turn-outs, they were disappointing,” he says. "That’s before we pucked a ball.

“It has been like this since early last year. I’m just hoping, the way we get them back in is to see that tenacity – you could see it in the league. Even though we were short a lot of players, they played hard. And we’ve a few things we’ve been working hard on.

“I think if we get a win or two at all you’ll see a change. But we have to work hard and do our side of things. All we can do is encourage them to come out and be with us. It’s all on 21st of April onwards. I’d love if we had 8 to 10,000 at Walsh Park, driving us on.

“The home crowd is going to be massive. Are we disappointed that we’re not winning games? Yes, but listen, look, we’ve been missing lads and we some lads just back. The games we lost we could quite easily have won so we’re not 100 hundred miles off it.

“I totally understand the frustration but we need the support. Let us be judged on the Munster championship and see how we go.”

Cork manager, Pat Ryan, has emphasised the importance of Sunday’s first-round clash in the run up to the game and Fitzgerald is happy to echo those sentiments.

"I'm glad Pat said that his whole world revolves around it because that makes two of us,” said Fitzgerald. “So does ours. Don't have any doubt that.

“We're in our home patch as well, we've got to start to take pride in where we're playing and what we're doing. We've talked about that. I'm glad Cork are that way but you can be sure of it Waterford are going to be that way too.

“We have to learn lessons from when we played them in the league and when we played them in the championship. We've gone over it, we've talked about it. We're going to try and see can we deal with certain aspects of play they have.

“And trust me, they will have to deal with certain aspects of play we'll have. They will have to so they will. There's certain areas we've identified that have caused us problems in two games and we've got to see can we nail them. That's we're going to try and do.

“This game is everything. Pat Ryan is right. This game is everything and it's on. Let's bring it. Let's bring it for both teams and see where we go."