Jubilant cats crush hopes and dreams of the Déise

A FESTIVE atmosphere, jersey-bedecked fans cheering and singing, white and blue as far as the eye could see: Waterford’s city centre was truly a heaving mass of joy and celebration yesterday afternoon. Then the match started.

Talk about tearing up the script — Kilkenny’s golden generation not only dismissed the hopes and dreams of a success-starved county, they threw them to the ground, stubbed them out like a hob-nailed boot crushing a cigarette-end, and then threw a bucket of water all over them for good measure.

For squeamish Waterford supporters, as the afternoon wore on, it was easier to look at the blood and gun-filled art works currently hanging around the main shopping and civic areas of the city than at the big screen high over John Roberts Square.

They were light relief, if anything, as the massacre of Jones’s Road played itself out in front of a couple of thousand disbelieving eyes.

“There’s always next year,” was a statement offering little consolation as the shadows lengthened, the sense of anticlimax complete — a late goal on the screen greeted by little more than perfunctory cheers by those who hadn’t left the square to return home, or to the pub, or to a quiet, darkened room.

Little more than the puck of a sliotar from the county border, the city centre played host to a few black and amber jerseys in the throng of white and blue, with more than a few divided families, like the Bolger-Martins, out for the occasion.

Alan Martin and Fiona Bolger and their children were in attendance with little Emily wearing an unusual shirt — Waterford colours on one side and Kilkenny on the other.

“She’s half and half,” explained her dad. “Fiona is Kilkenny and I’m Waterford. She’s more Waterford today though,” he added, despite the unfolding gloom being transmitted from GAA headquarters.

Donna Hutchinson, April Daly and Dawn Sinnott couldn’t get tickets for the match, despite being “huge fans”, but planned a night out despite the bad result for their heroes.

! Her face painted with “Up the Déise” on one cheek and the Waterford crest on the other, Ruth Fitzgerald with her friend Sarah Honan described the atmosphere as “brilliant”.

But that was before Kilkenny star Eddie Brennan burst the bubble with two quick-fire goals which effectively prolonged the Déise’s 49-year famine and thoroughly silenced John Roberts Square.

Full-blooded roars which greeted so many things early on, from TV’s Michael Lyster turning his attention to the senior game after the minor preliminaries, to Waterford’s arrival on the Croke Park pitch, to the throw-in, to the team’s first score, were all too soon replaced by quiet disbelief and little more than a ripple of enthusiasm after rare scores from the challengers.

The final whistle brought an end to the anticlimax and all the Waterford people can do now as they put away the flags, clear the bunting from the eaves and scrub off the blue and white paint is follow the advice of their adopted anthem for the year: Don’t Stop Believing.