‘Corner turned’ for Waterford football

Waterford County Board chairman Paddy Joe Ryan believes a “corner was turned” in the fortunes of Waterford football at Monday night’s extensive football forum.

Close to 100 club officials attended the three-hour meeting in Dungarvan and Ryan is adamant the first steps were taken in restoring pride in the Waterford football jersey.

Following a hugely encouraging start to the year in which Tom McGlinchey’s side captured the McGrath Cup, the Déise’s flagship team lost five of their seven Division 4 league games and bowed out of the championship following 22 and 13-point hammerings to Tipperary and Offaly respectively.

The Waterford chairman said one of the primary goals heading into 2016 is to ensure the county’s best footballers are pulling on the Waterford shirt.

“We gave clubs a chance to blast fire on Monday night and there is a concern from them that the board is not doing enough with regard to the promotion and upgrading of football. There is an equal concern from the board that football clubs are not making an effort enough to support Waterford football, like would happen with the Waterford hurling team,” remarked Ryan.

“A prominent hurling club cannot get enough players on the Waterford senior panel, whereas the football clubs don’t seem to be encouraging the better players to play with the football team.

“A week before the Offaly game, we were struggling to get a panel together. We won the McGrath Cup, we beat Cork in a competitive game for the first time in a very long time. Interest then drifted throughout the league and despite Tom [McGlinchey] putting in a huge effort, he had problems in getting players.

“We have the same eight or 10 people following the county during the league and we are not getting enough people to club games either. Football attendances have dropped off alarmingly. There is a huge problem with football in the east of the county and in the city. You could say some of the clubs have fallen off the wagon, with regard to football.”

A number of proposals emerged from the meeting including the appointment of a director of football and improving county development squads.

“With regard to a director of football, we will have to talk to Croke Park. That will come down to resources. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and this will have to be teased out.”

He continued: “I met with games and development personnel last January and we set about putting an U13 squad in place. We got very good people involved and they brought a squad of 30 to the All-Ireland semi-finals in Croke Park. We are looking forward to those players making up a nice minor team in five years’ time. It is no good talking about winning the minor or U21 All-Ireland in 2016, we have to start at the bottom.”

The Déise chairman said it is “practically impossible” to see the county SFC being wrapped up in time to ensure Waterford representation in the Munster club quarter-final in early November. The fixture backlog is due to a three-team play-off to determine seedings for the quarter-finals.