{"id":397388,"date":"2026-04-14T04:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/397388\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T04:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:58:16","slug":"we-had-eight-training-waterford-boss-shares-stark-reality-for-weaker-counties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/397388\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We Had Eight Training’ – Waterford Boss Shares Stark Reality For Weaker Counties"},"content":{"rendered":"

Waterford footballers may have fallen short on the scoreboard, but their manager was full of pride after their Munster Championship clash with Tipperary.<\/p>\n

Tipperary ran out 0-15 to 1-7 winners in Fraher Field, with Se\u00e1n O\u2019Connor proving the difference, hitting six second-half points to send the Premier County into a semi-final meeting with Cork.<\/p>\n

\n‘We Had Eight Training’ – Waterford Boss Shares Stark Reality For Weaker Counties\n<\/p>\n

But the main talking point afterwards came from Waterford boss Ephie Fitzgerald, who laid bare the scale of the challenge facing football in the county.<\/p>\n

I came in pretty late, but we had eight training at Christmas. Eight!<\/p>\n

We were to play MTU in a challenge match and we had to cancel because we just couldn’t get numbers. We’ve come a long way from that.<\/p>\n

I made 168 phone calls to guys to try and get fellas involved.<\/p>\n

Waterford actually led at half-time thanks to a Michael O\u2019Brien goal, but Tipperary\u2019s greater depth and scoring power told in the second half.<\/p>\n

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Despite the result extending Waterford\u2019s losing run to 13 games, Fitzgerald was keen to focus on the bigger picture.<\/p>\n

Waterford is seen as a hurling county and everybody tends to want to be a Waterford hurler. I can’t do anything about that.<\/p>\n

But there are players out there who would make a huge difference to our panel if they commit to us. That’s something I\u2019ll be working on going forward, hopefully.<\/p>\n

Fitzgerald admitted results are unlikely to change significantly until that depth improves, particularly in terms of building a bench capable of competing physically at this level.<\/p>\n

Still, there were positives to take from the performance.<\/p>\n

Waterford matched Tipperary in many areas and showed clear signs of progress, something Fitzgerald said gave him \u201cpride and joy\u201d despite the defeat, especially considering the effort involved, including 160-mile round trips to training for the Cork native.<\/p>\n

For Tipperary, it\u2019s on to a Munster semi-final clash with Cork.<\/p>\n

For Waterford, attention now turns to the Tailteann Cup, but if Fitzgerald\u2019s comments are anything to go by, there is a much bigger rebuild ongoing behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: Enda McGinley Pinpoints Key Difference Between Mayo And ‘Top Teams’<\/a>
\nSEE ALSO: McConville Calls Out Carlow Boss For Outside Manager Take Before Wicklow Clash<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Waterford footballers may have fallen short on the scoreboard, but their manager was full of pride after their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39,6513],"class_list":{"0":"post-397388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories","14":"tag-waterford"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}