Sometimes these things just damn right p*ss you off.
Waterford senior club footballers have just been screwed over and it is hard to watch it all unfold.
The Deise look set to miss the deadline to finish up their football championship in time to enter the winner into the Munster senior football championship and, as a result, the champion of Waterford would not get to represent their county.
Look, we all know Waterford is predominantly a hurling county. They were a couple of points away from winning the All-Ireland whereas their footballers continue to plough away in Division Four and may be one of the poorer teams in the country.
Saying that, they did put in a great display against Cork this year in the Munster Championship but that’s neither here nor there now, because the point is that we are all very well aware it is a hurling county and that was never better demonstrated by what’s happening to dedicated footballers this week.
The Waterford County Board met on Monday night and indicated that the club football championship would not be finished on time for the winner to enter Munster.
The county were already granted an extra week to complete both senior hurling and football championships but the Senior Football Championship is at a standstill due to dual clubs’ participation in the hurling championship.
That means that although the hurling championship will go ahead as scheduled, the football championship will finish up past the provincial deadline, meaning the Waterford champions will not enter the Munster Championship.
Imagine that. Every county should have the right to compete at that level, especially if they have busted their gut to win a county championship.
It looked like in 2015 the treatment of Waterford footballers had hit rock bottom, when Nemo Rangers faced Stradbally in the quarterfinals of the Munster Championship they came away as victors in a scoreline of 1-13 to 0-5, the only thing was the Waterford side had played their county final 24 hours previously and were then expected to play the seven-time All-Ireland champions.
https://twitter.com/AidanMoynihan1/status/663087061319200768
This led to members of the Stradbally team protesting and refusing to play for their county team, meaning that Waterford have been without a number of key players ever since.
