There was an air of celebration around Chadwicks Wexford Park that wasn’t entirely attributable to county champions St Martin’s comfortably defeating Naas in a Leinster Club Hurling Championship semi-final.
The occasion was also the first time the club had qualified for a senior provincial final and the first time in 10 years a Wexford club had made it since Oulart-The Ballagh, who won Leinster back then.
Veteran wing back Daithí Waters is, however, quick to point out that his club has forged an unusual record in recent years. In their three most recent provincial campaigns before this season, Martin’s have lost out to the club that went on to win not just the Leinster title, but the All-Ireland as well.
This year, they turned around that experience by defeating defending champions Na Fianna in the Leinster quarter-final, having lost narrowly to them 12 months ago.
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“That was the big thing,” said Waters. “We knew seeing how Na Fianna went through last year’s club championship and won it [that we weren’t far off]. We played Ballyhale in 2019 and they went on to win it. We played Cuala in ’17 and they went on to win it.
“So, I suppose it was kind of believing in ourselves that if we could get a bit of momentum, anything could happen. And that latest game against Na Fianna, two weeks ago, that really stood to us as well and gave us great energy and belief coming back into training.”
The weekend after next, they will face Ballyhale once again, but this time in a Croke Park final. Six years ago, the Kilkenny champions were easy winners but on form, that gap has definitely closed.
“We’re playing the kingpins now of Leinster club hurling. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’ll go up there and give it one hell of a rattle.”
Waters is no stranger to Croke Park, having had a long and distinguished football career with Wexford from 2009 to 2022, including the 2011 Leinster final against eventual All-Ireland winners Dublin, to whom they lost narrowly.
He captained St Martin’s to a first senior football title in 2013 and has spent more than half his life hurling for the club.
That brought him to the attention of county hurling manager Liam Dunne 10 years ago.
“I was trying to get Daithí to come in maybe a year before he did,” Dunne says. “He decided to come in with me for a year and it was a great shame, looking back, that he didn’t stick it out for another year. I played him up at centre forward.
“I definitely saw something in him. He was a great footballer in his day, one of the best we ever had. But for a guy that wouldn’t have been playing at the top level of hurling all the time, because he would have been so much into the football, his first touch and his reading of the play was always really good.
“I just thought he had all the fundamentals of being a top-class hurler, so that’s why we were trying to get him in that time.
“Daithí’s always played right half back there for St Martin’s and has been a huge presence.”
Waters played a part in five of the club’s six county titles. He appeared to have been drifting towards the end of his career, coming on as a sub late in matches. But by the time Martin’s reappeared last year on the roll of honour, Waters was back in the familiar No 5 jersey, playing the full hour.
After the 2024 county final, he said it required a lot of work to hit the standards required.
“You have to have the hurl in your hand every day,” he said. “It does mean a bit more to win when you’re older too and if I’m being honest with myself, the last couple of years, I suppose I thought I had to work less because I was older.
“I thought maybe experience would have got me over the line, but it actually is the other way – I had to work two or three times as hard to get my place on the team.”
It has been a great year for the club, with the footballers reclaiming senior status by winning the intermediate title. They decided not to push for the provincial football championship, fielding a weakened team against Tubberclair the previous week.
Waters didn’t play but defends the priority.
“I picked up a bit of a knock – at 38! I think we played 11 weeks on the run. It’s easy for people to say that we didn’t give it a shot but we had 12 lads playing dual for 11 weeks straight. We got back to senior and now we’re into a Leinster senior hurling final. We’re having a good auld year.”
