Free-taking responsibility helps laidback Bennett turn a corner

You might be wondering when Pauric Mahony, arguably the best in the business with the exception of Patrick Horgan, will return to free-taking duties for Waterford. It may be a case of if, not when, Páraic Fanning gives him the nod again.

Eight games as free-taker (six in the Allianz League and two in the Munster) have seen Stephen Bennett amass 5-94, 2-76 from frees and one 65. Next to flawless, the least he has scored in a game was the 10 points he posted when Waterford faced Galway in Walsh Park at the second time of asking last Sunday week. It’s a responsibility that has fallen into the 23-year-old’s lap but he has seized it with both hands.

“With Pauric Mahony gone with Ballygunner, we needed one for the Munster League matches and the league,” he explains. “There would have been one or two other lads who would have taken them but for injuries but I’m really enjoying it. They keep me in the game when I mightn’t be involved for a few minutes and keep your confidence up. It’s not really about them though at the end of the day; it’s about nailing a starting spot in the team for what you have to offer as a whole.”

Bennett’s relaxed attitude suits such pressurised situations. During Waterford’s successful All-Ireland minor championship in 2013, injury caused him to miss the team photograph on five occasions. But being fit from the outset of this season, something he has struggled to do in recent times, also counted in his favour. He had a first double hip operation at the age of 17 the second having just turned 20, so his time as a senior inter-county hurler has been more of a battle than a blessing. But he senses that after a couple of false dawns, he’s turned a corner. So far this season there has been no trouble with the hips or symptomatic issues such as groin injuries.

“I’ve played every match since November so it’s great to not only get a full pre-season but play the Munster League matches as well. I’m delighted with the game-time. When you’re coming back from injury it’s very difficult to get up to a base however much training you do. You could be fit but matches are different. The longer you play, the better you’re going to get.

“The hips are never going to be perfect but I know a lot more about them now and how to handle them. They’re the best they’re ever going to be and I’m getting full training and full matches done with them so I’m happy enough.

“This year, I would say it’s the least I’ve spent on the physio table in any of the years I’ve been involved, thank God. I’ve been away from it and things are going well. The more you’re able to train, the more you’re able to play matches.”

For a forward whose eye for goal gained him notoriety as well as fame in Waterford (“You could ask a few underage managers, they would have killed me going for goals and losing matches!” he said in 2017), his scoring returns from play would also suggest he’s maturing. He’s still finding the net but his points totals are improving.

When you’re young you don’t really care. Well, not that you don’t care but you don’t think about you’re doing. The older you get, the more experienced you become and realise you have to stay in the game more and you do that by taking points instead of going for goals when they mightn’t be on. It’s about doing what is right for the situation you’re in at the time.

"We need to be doing that more now and goals are important too because the good teams are getting them at the right times.”

Fanning’s encouragement of Bennett to cut loose is appealing as it is to the greener players, he highlights. “It’s about getting the balance right. It depends on what you’re told to do. You’ve younger lads coming in like Callum Lyons and Jack Pender (Prendergast). It’s their first year and they’re standing out as good as anybody else and they’re making last year’s starters really think.

“Paraic wants us to express ourselves and he wants lads to do mad things and try things and when you have the confidence to try things things go well for you.”

Like Bennett’s brother Shane’s audacious tapped sideline to set up Jamie Barron for a point against Galway 13 days ago?

“Paraic had been saying that to him for a couple of weeks, in fairness to him. Shane was good to do it then — I didn’t even realise it was happening, to be honest. It’s easy to believe you’re going to do it but to actually do it in front of people is a different story. It was clever enough — you need those little things at times.”

But for a primary school teaching course he’s now halfway through, Bennett would have likely joined Shane and Kieran travelling early last summer and missed Waterford’s ill-fated Munster SHC.

He senses how it refreshed them but he is also aware of how the luckless nature of 2018 has inspired team-mates.

“I didn’t have much of a choice because I was doing the primary teaching course and I was doing that over the summer and the Gaeltacht so I actually couldn’t go when the lads went. I probably would have went, to be honest. I’m nearly halfway through that course.

“The lads went earlier than everyone else last year but then we got knocked out and seven or eight more went as it was more or less a free summer. They’re really enjoying it this year because they have had a break and they’re refreshed and the other lads are thinking that things got so bad for us that they don’t want it to happen again and they want to push to compete with the big teams. There’s a good mixture between the two.”

That it’s Galway again tomorrow means Waterford’s guard will be up in anticipation of a backlash considering Shane’s last-gasp goal to claim the Round 5 victory. But Stephen is delighted to be facing them so soon again.

“Galway are probably the most consistent team over the last number of years, the best team in the country. You’ve Limerick up there now but Galway have been there a lot. People are saying, ‘Oh, you have Galway again’ but there is no better way to prepare for Championship than playing the best teams. They might have some of the St Thomas’ lads back and Daithí Burke and they’ll be keen to make an impression.

“The last time we played them, the weather and the conditions played a big part in it so you couldn’t read too much into it. If we had lost the game, people would have been saying, ‘Ye lost to Dublin, ye lost to Galway — where are Waterford?’ But now everybody’s saying things are going well. There are fine margins but we’re looking forward to it and we want to be consistent against the good teams like Galway. And whatever way you dress it up, you want to get to a final.”

Déise ace play down difference between 1A and 1B

Waterford find themselves in more illustrious company next year when they compete in the Division 1 Group A but Stephen Bennett has emphasised the strength of the outgoing Division 1B. According to Wexford manager Davy Fitzgerald, there is “an Atlantic Ocean of difference” between the two groups but Bennett points out that the lower division produced the last two All-Ireland winners, Limerick and Galway.

Division 1B has also produced three of the last four league winners — Waterford (2015), Clare (‘16) and Galway (‘17).

And with three Division 1B teams in tomorrow’s Division 1 semi-finals, the odds of this eight-year-old league format producing another champion from the lower division are short.

“For all the talk of 1B being the poorer group, Carlow were still competitive with Galway and drew with them. There are good matches in the division and you see the presence of the teams in the semi-finals and how Limerick and Galway came from it to win All-Irelands the last two seasons.

“I really don’t think there has been a huge difference between playing 1A and 1B. It’s actually nice to get to try more fellas and I think you gel more in 1B than in 1A where you’re really focused on playing bigger teams and going out most of the time with close to your starting 15 in the Championship. In 1B, you can experiment more but that’s not to say it’s not competitive when you look at the three of us from 1B in the semi-finals.”

Waterford find themselves in Group A next year along with Cork, Galway, Limerick, Tipperary, and Westmeath.

Group B comprises Carlow, Clare, Dublin, Laois, Kilkenny, and Wexford.