Masterson moves on to new challenges with positive attitude

Anthony Masterson has no problem with you bringing him back to his annus horribilis that was 2011.

A season that begun promisingly for Wexford ended in embarrassment for him.

The rare mistake against Dublin in the Leinster final? We’ll get to that shortly but the biggest talking point was his forced apology to Longford referee Derek Fahy. The Castletown man criticised Fahy’s officiating as well as his decision to allow what turned out to be Ian Ryan’s winning point in Limerick’s qualifier win over Wexford.

Faced with the prospect of an eight-week ban, Masterson had no hesitation in writing a contrite letter to Fahy.

“It did get to me over the week because I was trying to work. It is an amateur sport and I was trying to do my day job.

“I was getting phone calls and letters about apologies and what not. It went on for a week or two and then I sat down and wrote a letter.

“Once I heard that I was going to miss championship for my club there was no second thought. I was sorry for calling the referee a name I shouldn’t have called him. It was something that rolled off the tongue. There was no ill-feeling towards him.”

Longford being Wexford’s opponents tomorrow, Fahy, of course, can’t referee but Masterson knows he’ll cross paths with him some day.

Masterson was between the posts for Wexford’s Division 3 final defeat by Longford in Croke Park in April so any ghosts from his costly spill in last year’s Leinster final there have been exorcised.

But with the prize for tomorrow’s winners a likely semi-final date with Dublin, he knows they may return.

“I’ve played 20 or 30 games for club and county since that match and it’s completely gone out of my head. Maybe if we beat Longford and play Dublin in the semi-final if they beat Louth it’ll creep back in for a couple of minutes in the lead-up.

“But in saying that, if I make another mistake you’ll have to see how you react.”

Masterson has been working hard in training on ways to counteract the new square ball rule and Jason Ryan has been extolling the work done by the defence in the build-up to the Longford game. The goalkeeper expects the team’s attitude to be a lot better than it was in the Division 3 final.

“We just got complacent. There was no intensity in the match and maybe the lads were just happy to be promoted after missing out two years in a row on score difference.”

As for why Wexford haven’t been able to put two solid seasons back-to-back under Ryan, Masterson argued: “I think 2009 was our only bad year under Jason.

“In 2010, we started to find our feet, we drew with Dublin and took them to extra-time and then beat Galway. We were just unlucky to draw a Cork team that went onto win an All-Ireland final.”