It’s a funny thing about Wexford and the league. They haven’t won it in 49 years. How did that happen when every other county with an All-Ireland going back more than a century has won one in the meantime?
This Sunday they’re back in the semi-finals hoping to reach a first final in three decades. Opponents Waterford have won a title comparatively recently, in 2015, and are by consensus next in line if Limerick get tired of All-Ireland domination. In other words, it is whispered their minds may be elsewhere.
Wexford though are there on merit, having a 100 per cent record, their first such run in the league since 1988. Under new manager Darragh Egan, they have taken each match on its merits and even if they’ve come under the radar, it’s been an encouraging campaign.
The closest encounter with this particular silverware came 29 years ago during a three-match epic with Cork in Thurles. There were chances to win the first game and the two replays but in the end, it never happened.
Not that 1993 was finished yet and they ended with another draw they might have improved on in the Leinster final against All-Ireland champions Kilkenny, who would go on to retain their title.
Tom Dempsey was captain of those teams and still sees that league as a big opportunity missed.
“I honestly think we’d have won the All-Ireland if we’d won that league. We were four points up on Kilkenny in the Leinster final with seven minutes left. They went on to beat Galway comfortably enough in the final. I though we were up there at that time, top two. Typical Wexford story, really.
“When Wexford get a few games in a row and a bit of momentum it really helps them. At that time big games were few and far between. There was no back door or qualifiers and you might only get one but that year we went from three league finals to Leinster quarter-final, semi-final and then two finals against the All-Ireland champions.
“The games were bringing us along confidence wise.”
The manager was the late Christy Keogh and although it was three years previously there is a potential link between the 1993 and the famous All-Ireland that followed in 1996.
“For me,” says Dempsey, “the big difference three years later under Liam Griffin was Niamh Fitzpatrick and the psychological work done. We’re not getting carried away at the moment and I have Waterford as favourites for Sunday but now we have the likes of Gordon D’Arcy and Billy Walsh [the two renowned Wexford sports personalities have been involved as performance consultants] working on people’s minds.”
The theme is very much “not getting carried away”. Larry Murphy’s career was just in its second year when he played in 1993. His lengthy service encompassed the All-Ireland but, impressed by the big picture as he is, he still suspects the reference points.
“Are the results a small bit flattering? Probably but I’ve never seen a player play so consistently well as Rory O’Connor. To win four man-of-the-match awards in a row – if he keeps this up, we’re in for a good summer.
“A county like Wexford will always try to compete but will always struggle to be as consistent as the Kilkennys, Corks and Tipps of the world simply because we don’t have as big a pool of hurlers.”
An unusual aspect of the semi-final is that despite living cheek by jowl, the counties didn’t meet in championship until 2003 by which stage Murphy was beginning to feel as if he was running out of steam.
He does however have reason to remember that meeting in Nowlan Park. It was the 2003 All-Ireland qualifier round two and Waterford were favourites after losing the Munster final to Cork whereas Wexford had been well beaten by All-Ireland champions Kilkenny.
A large crowd of 26,000 turned up in Kilkenny, creating a great atmosphere.
“It was huge for me. I actually still get emotional thinking about that day,” he recalls. “My wife’s from Waterford [daughter of legendary local journalist, the late Johnny Murphy] so that was the first link. My first cousin John Conran was managing the team and yet I was only a sub.
“I’ll never forget because it was the first time Wexford had ever played Waterford in the championship and I was wearing number 27. I remember going into the dressingroom that day and thinking, ‘this is it’. This is my swan song and I’m not going to get a game – retirement staring me smack in the face.”
Fates conspired to undermine that doleful scenario. Two meetings – one chance and one deliberate – combined to shake him out of feeling sorry for himself.
He kept hitting me in the chest. Kept saying, 'today is your day and if you get a crack at this, you make sure. I'm telling you. It's your day.'
“Two things happened me. First I met Richie Power [senior], who was a steward in Nowlan Park. We ended up working together for 20 years and became great friends. He said that I looked in bad form. I said that this could be my last day. This is the end of the road for me if we get beaten.
“’You never know,’ says he and I never forgot that. Then on my way to the dugout – I won’t deny I was sulking! – Liam Griffin came down, out of the stand and gave me the greatest pep talk I’ve ever had.
“He kept hitting me in the chest. Kept saying, ‘today is your day and if you get a crack at this, you make sure. I’m telling you. It’s your day.’”
Within 24 minutes he got his crack. Adrian Fenlon, who had started at centre forward on a suspect hamstring, had to leave the field. In came Murphy at full forward with Paul Codd switching out and the new configuration sparked almost immediately.
From being six behind on half an hour, Wexford fired an unanswered 1-3 and the match was suddenly up for grabs. Murphy’s power in the air completely unhinged a previously untroubled Tom Feeney as Damien Fitzhenry’s long-range puck-outs rained down on Waterford’s defence.
Murphy though credits his former manager with firing him up.
“Well he really got me going. ‘Concentrate and take your chance.’ He turned me around and afterwards I went to see him and I was bawling. It was magic. Fairytale stuff. It got two more years playing for Wexford and the next year we won the Leinster final.
“Every player has to retire. It’s the one thing we all have in common. I just wanted to be going out on my own terms – not wearing number 27 in Nowlan Park and being an unused sub.”
This weekend a new generation tries to create its own terms of engagement.
