Travers: Wexford didn’t do enough to stay in top flight
The Leinster county’s appeal against demotion was due to be heard by the DRA last night. The Model county has argued that, under the ‘two strikes and you’re out’ rule, Cork should be relegated after their failure to fulfil their opening pair of fixtures.
“Over five games we didn’t do enough to stay in Division One, simple as that,” said Travers. “We won’t shy away from that but what the DRA do, well, who knows.
“It’s hard to comment on it because it seems as if they have administered the same rules in different ways in the same division, which is strange.
“Let’s remove ourselves from the Cork situation, that doesn’t effect us so it’s how they review it. I still think we’ll be playing in Division Two.”
Should they make the drop, Wexford would at least be joined in the lower division by teams of the calibre of Offaly, Antrim and Laois, but that will do little to soften the blow for a side struggling to keep abreast of hurling’s pacesetters.
“It is a blow but I don’t think it will really set in until we look at our league fixtures for next year. We won’t be playing those top teams, the likes of Cork, Kilkenny and Waterford.
“That’s going to be a blow because our preparations are going to have to make up for that. It will be next January when it hits us.”
As Travers admits himself, it is entirely Wexford’s own fault that they find themselves in their current predicament.
Their league campaign was bookended with a superb win over Waterford and an unfortunate, late defeat in Cork but the real damage was done in the ties in between against Antrim, Kilkenny and Dublin.
The 15-point loss at home to the All-Ireland champions was crushing in its own right but the low point was arguably the seven-point deficit they were left with leaving Casement Park.
That gave Antrim their only points of the campaign and proved to be the millstone that dragged Wexford into the depths for the spring 2009 campaign.
“We had a good start to the league and then we kind of wavered a bit up in Antrim. Antrim beat us fair and square. It’s not that they caught us off guard or there was a late score. They just beat us all over the field.
“I know we got a draw against Dublin but we felt we finished the league on a positive note against Cork. We should have beaten them.
“When we got into a stage where we could win the game we just didn’t quite get over the line but, from our point of view, even though we didn’t get the result we wanted, we feel we finished the league on a positive note.”
The bottom line remains a familiar one — Wexford’s consistency or, to be more accurate, their maddening lack of it. Ever since their resurgence in the mid-1990s, the county has been the GAA’s resident schizophrenics.
“That’s something we do discuss. It’s a work in progress and the evidence hasn’t really surfaced yet but it’s a team that is changing too.
“We’ve had a lot of big names who have retired over the last few years so it’s hard to get the consistency when you have that. We are moving in the right direction but we are all focusing on Dublin.”
It is Tommy Naughton’s side that Wexford will be meeting next in competitive action, as long as the Dubs don’t upset the form book and lose to Westmeath before that.
“They are on an upward curve but it’s up to us to control that situation and try and win that match,” said Travers. “It is a fear, absolutely, because they are a strong team. In years gone by maybe it was a game you wouldn’t have treated with as much respect but certainly now you would.”
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