Hard work pays for Wexford's Diarmuid O’Keeffe

No other team, it’s fair to say, worked harder than Wexford hurlers this January. Just as he did with Clare and Waterford previously, Davy Fitzgerald put his players through the ringer, training them on no less than 26 days.

The benefits were more than evident in the opening Division 1B wins over Limerick and Galway, which virtually confirmed their promotion, but they continue to reveal themselves as Wexford prepare for a first Division 1 semi-final since 2007.

Commuting from Santry where he lives and Dunboyne where he works, Diarmuid O’Keeffe would have had more reason to feel that gruel but insists the time flew. “I got told by a friend of mine in work that we had trained 26 or 28 days of however many days there was in the month and I didn’t actually believe it myself.