Jamie Barron of Waterford with his PwC GAA GPA Hurler of the Month award for July pictured at his home club The Nire Fourmilewater in Ballymacarbry.
By Kevin Egan
For 35 years, from 1963 through to 1998, Waterford were always eliminated from the Liam MacCarthy cup race by the time the semi-final stage rolled around. The advent of the back door coincided with a new era of success in Waterford hurling however, and since the turn of the millennium, the last four of the All-Ireland series has involved the Déise more often than not.
The holy grail of being the last team standing still eludes the team however, and it’s a measure of where the county has come that to fall at the penultimate hurdle, even to a team of the calibre of the reigning All-Ireland champions, is considered to be an unequivocal failure.
“I think the days of kind of moral victories and kind of getting to semi-finals and things are done,” was the verdict of Jamie Barron, who was speaking after being awarded the PwC GAA/GPA Player of the month award for July.
“I know some teams are out of the Championship earlier than others, but at the end of the day I think everyone is out to win it,” said the Fourmilewater hurler.
“Whatever way the All-Ireland pans out, I think whichever team loses will see their year as a failure. I know Limerick are probably seen as the favourites at the moment, and seen as a bit further away from the pack as the rest, but every other team is chasing and every other team is out to win the All-Ireland. Ultimately if you don’t win that goal, you are as disappointed as any other team.”
The absence of key players like Tadhg de Búrca and Iarlaith Daly hurt Waterford’s chances in 2021, and a slow start to the year condemned the county to a qualifier run that necessitated four games in the space of four weeks. None of those were excuses for failure, in Barron’s opinion.
“I think we have a very, very good team. We have the backbone of a minor All-Ireland winning team and an under-21 team. Around them, the players are there. It’s not as if we feel we are overachieving any more.
“Progress is being made year on year I suppose, especially with the management team, it was their second year in, they are still developing their game, their style of play and stuff like that.
“Hopefully next year more stepping stones can be got at and hopefully develop on from where we are at, at the moment. There are definitely huge improvements to be made as we seen at the weekend.
“We have to come up another few steps if we want to challenge Limerick at the moment.
Waterford's year ended last Saturday evening when they were defeated by Limerick at Croke Park.
Barron was in no doubt as to who he wanted to lead the team into 2022, praising Liam Cahill and his backroom group for the work they’ve done.
“As a group, I think they are a great management team. The whole team from top to bottom is very good and the players are 100 percent behind him.
“We know how good he (Liam) is. We know how good Mikey Bevans is. All the people he has around him there, I don’t think they would be found wanting in any set-up in Ireland.
“If we want to progress more and more we are going to need the two boys and their backroom team with them, so we are hoping that they will stay on for another year, if not more.”
When asked about the changes that have been brought about by Cahill and his coaches, Barron spoke about how the Ballingarry man has addressed their psychological approach to the championship.
“Down here we haven’t won many All-Irelands, as you know, so it can be hard to get that mindset that we can beat, and play against your Kilkennys and Corks, the traditional teams who have won All-Irelands over the years.
“So they have come in and they have kind of done a lot of work on changing our mindset, and really getting us to just believe in ourselves.
“I think to date it has been very beneficial to us and moving on over the next few years we can develop on that as well and hopefully it will be something that can get us over the line and get us to where we want to be.”
