Jack Prendergast: It's a day to be enjoyed but there's a long way to go yet

Prendergast echoed Fitzgerald in saying that there was a belief that more was in them even through the worst of a trying spring that prompted some “tough conversations”.

ENJOYABLE DAY: Waterford’s Jack Prendergast in action against Cork’s Mark Coleman. Pic Credit: Ken Sutton, Inpho.

They were four minutes in at Walsh Park when Ciaran Joyce tried to burst his way through a tangle of white jerseys like a hunter slashing at vines in dense jungle.

Every time he disentangled an arm here or a torso there, another materialized to block his path. Tadhg de Burca, Jamie Barron and Neil Montgomery were his chief tormentors.