When replays come as standard they are completely different games than what went before, and for Waterford, Sunday's Munster quarter-final hurling replay against Cork already comes with an entirely different level of expectation.
Heading into that game last Sunday week – freshly relegated, and wracked by injury and the suspension of Shane O’Sullivan – Waterford were given little chance of taking out the beaten All-Ireland finalists. Instead, they had Cork chasing a 1-17 to 0-11 deficit, although they just couldn’t quite hold them back for long now.
Now, they return to Thurles on Sunday expected to prove that was no fluke, that Waterford are in fact perfectly capable of winning this. For forward Jake Dillon that's the sort of expectation that had put on themselves anyway, so nothing much has actually changed within their own mentality.
“We’d mixed emotions after the game,” says Dillon. “We were nine points up, the game was there for us, and we left Cork back into it. Obviously, at the end it could have swung either way but we are happy to do it all again. It would have been unfortunate for anyone who got beaten by a point.”
Still, Waterford’s turn in form caught plenty of people off guard, not just in Cork. Dillon pays tribute to manager Derek McGrath for instilling that sort of belief, despite their disappointing end to the league, and indeed long list of injuries.
“Championship is totally different to the league or anything else. But I wouldn’t say Derek was under pressure. We’ve a very young panel, and when we met at the start of the year, he said he was going to try things in the league.
“We had four or five debutants in the team against Cork and a couple of more lads coming on. We all believe in him and the training has been absolutely brilliant. He’s just trying to improve us so it’s not easy with the Waterford public after the league when it was disappointing to be relegated. But Derek has given an opportunity to everyone and if you’re playing well you’ll be in.”
Youthful talent
Nowhere was that youthful talent better demonstrated in the drawn game than in Austin Gleeson, the 19-year-old who scored such a spectacular second-half goal.
“People in Waterford would know Austin very well,” says Dillon. “He was the heartbeat of the minor team last year. He was absolutely brilliant for the lads. He came into the senior panel this year and settled in straight away. Nothing fazes him. He’s in himself, he’s not over-confident, he trains hard and he’s just a natural hurler.
"He'd remind you of Ken McGrath, or Paul Flynn. He could do anything with a stick in training or just around. He's capable of anything. But, look, that doesn't surprise us. He's been doing it the last while."
