Ahearne seeks antidote to pain of ’98

Waterford have not beaten Kilkenny in the championship for 54 years. While the sides have only met six times in that period, the fact they all came in All-Ireland finals and semi-finals has left a scar on the Déise consciousness dating back to the 1959 All-Ireland final replay.

Since that time the closest they came to stopping the sequence was 1998 when Kilkenny shaded a low scoring All-Ireland semi-final by 1-11 to 1-10. The closest, yes, but also the one that niggles most.

In a year of high drama and controversy, that game faded into the background but it brought promising white and blue momentum to an abrupt end. Former Waterford hurler Shane Ahearne served as selector under Gerald McCarthy that day and he remembers it as the game that got away.