In an interview in the weekend's Sunday Times Waterford corner-back Noel Connors spoke of his status at the age of 24 as "a senior figure in the team". On the face of it the reference looked incongruous but circumstances had ordained that the county would have to fast-track a number of younger players in to championship action and anyway his seniority has been based on performance and responsibility rather than merely years.
It’s four years since Waterford won the Munster title and he ended that year an All Star. On Sunday he lined up in a team packed with rookies and against a Cork side, heavily favoured to package and file them under “Q” for qualifiers.
It didn't play out that way and if the end – Cork's late free from Patrick Horgan to equalise – was a frustrating verdict on an unexpectedly energetic performance from the underdogs, Connors believes there's no point getting worked up over incidents and decisions that might have tilted the outcome.
"I think the young lads really enjoyed the occasion. You can talk about decisions until the cows come home but ultimately the game was a draw. You can't really dwell too much on what happened." Useful experience He also says the experience will have been very useful for the side that lined out in Thurles. "Our objective is to play as many matches as possible, particularly with the younger fellas and the injuries that we have. It gives individuals two weeks to come back onto the panel and maybe even on to the team. Look we're happy we got a draw."
The mother lode of Waterford’s supply of new talent has been mined by the work in the colleges – in which senior manager Derek McGrath has been closely involved. Connors is a graduate of the 2008 All-Ireland winning De La Salle team, which he captained.
His view of Sunday is that whereas they had to field a young team with four debutants, the only issue was the alacrity with which they were being introduced rather than the intrinsic quality of the newcomers – a point proved by the memorable debut goal from one of last year’s All-Ireland winning minors Austin Gleeson
Colleges success "Yeah you have to take into consideration the majority of that team have won colleges," says Connors, "or played at a high level with All-Ireland winning minor teams and stuff. So I don't really think the occasion fazed them too much. That's where all the experience stemmed from in that sense."
As the team’s most accomplished man marker, he inevitably renewed acquaintance with Patrick Horgan, who he has tussled with previously but it wasn’t until the Cork All Star moved to wing forward that he made his greatest impact on Sunday’s match.
Now in his sixth championship he is wise to any attempted tactical coups, intended to unsettle defences and was relaxed in the chaos of the opening exchanges in Thurles when Cork moved around their players at the start.
“I suppose it’s this new tactic that’s after coming in, in recent years: people roaming in and out and you’re not marking the same individual for a fixed period of time. You have to deal with these issues. The main objective is, don’t let your man score or get the ball, so I don’t really think that’s an issue for any intercounty team.”
But at the heart of a most encouraging display was the oldest motivation in the book: being written off before a big match.
“Look Waterford in general is a very proud county. I suppose we get a lot of criticism at times in terms of being under-rated and so forth. It really showed the hunger and desire that we wanted to play with freedom and abandon, particularly with the younger fellas going out, like. I suppose I’m alluding to what Derek said, (that) everyone was not really giving us too much of a chance.
“And we went out and kind of proved the critics wrong to be perfectly honest.”
