GAELIC GAMES:TONY BROWNE will spend the next few days ascertaining the extent of a hamstring injury, but it is hard to imagine the Mount Sion veteran not taking the field when Waterford play their neighbours from Kilkenny in an intriguing All-Ireland semi-final.

It became clear after Sunday that mere hurling wounds are not enough to see off this Waterford team; anything less than garlic and stakes through the heart and they will keep on coming. And Browne’s ongoing feats remain a key part of that elasticity.

Most of Browne’s contemporaries have either retired or been gently nudged to the sideline by Davy Fitzgerald but Browne remains evergreen.

In Thurles, he was at the coalface of a hungry Waterford defensive effort, rising to claim one memorable ball over the shoulder of Joe Canning during a period when Waterford were stamping their authority and personality on the match.

The only shadow on his day was a slight strain he felt towards the end of the game but that took second place to his relief at the way the team performed.

“After the disappointment of the Tipp game we had nothing to lose, just went out to prove ourselves. This won’t do, we have to drive on from here and get back to hard training again. We let the result take care of itself.

“Coming off the last day we had a lot of criticism and our backs were up against it today. Lads came out fighting as if our backs were against the wall and that is what happened and we probably deserved our victory.”

In retrospect, Waterford’s gritty performance may lead to a slight revision of their collapse against Tipperary. After all, they did score 19 points that day. And, even allowing for the alarming gaps that appeared in their back division, there is something freakish about the concession of seven goals.

In Thurles, they allowed nothing like those sort of gifted opportunities to the Galway men. Davy Fitzgerald seems to have made light work of succeeding in what appeared to be a difficult task: convincing his players that they were still a good team.

The most remarkable aspect of their win over Galway was their absolute conviction from the first minute, from Shane Walsh’s early goal to the way the defence clamped down on Galway’s attacking six.

“Yeah it worked,” Browne says. “The defence did well, yeah. But these kind of things happen over the years.

“A lot of breaks of the ball just didn’t run for us the last day (against Tipperary). But the last day is gone. That is it. It’s over. The Galway game was what it was all about.”

Fitzgerald’s decision to gather his team for a Monday morning training session after the Tipperary catastrophe was the first act in their recovery.

It was the old adage of getting straight back up on the horse. The imminence of the Galway match left the Waterford management and players with no time to dwell on what happened to them in the Munster final. It probably wasn’t even a matter of thinking about advancing to the All-Ireland semi-final, it was about recovering their sense of pride and sense of selves immediately.

“It was important to bounce back straightaway so knowing that we had a game to come in two weeks against a team that was in form, it was great to get back out there and just open up a little bit. So we are just happy to be in the next round.”

Their rematch with Kilkenny casts them in a familiar role – loveable underdogs. The Cats will remain hard favourites to return to the All-Ireland final against Tipperary. It has been a stark reversal of mood and fortune in just a fortnight. Now Waterford fans can travel to Croke Park to see both their minor and senior teams in action (albeit on different Sundays). Suddenly the summer seems far from bleak.

“I suppose we are all playing for the big prize so we have more work to do now and we will give it a shot. We are happy to be still there. We are delighted with this win. But look, we are only in the semi-final and that is where it is at.

“I don’t know (about the hamstring) to tell the truth. I just felt it going in the last few minutes of the match so hopefully over the next few days I will be able to find out what the story is.”