Davy Fitzgerald (Irish Daily Star)
“It is a great feeling, a great win and I am proud of them. I wanted to manage Waterford. I have got a team to an All-Ireland final. Am I content with that? No, I want to win it.
“That would be it. Naturally I would be lying if you said you didn’t. I’ll be standing on the same sideline as Brian Cody. It’s immense…
“The difference Jack Kennedy made in the end was awesome, but I always knew I had him there and the likes of Paul Flynn, Gary Hurney. I had Dave Bennett sitting on the sideline – I had a lot of lads.
“I have strength in depth. There are lads I feel I can turn to. We have still a bit of work to do, but we will knuckle down. We know the task and the team we are facing.”
Tony Considine (Irish Examiner)
“Justin McCarthy won three Munster titles and a National League with Waterford, none of which had been won down there for over 40 years; I’m sure the Waterford players, who were instrumental in his removal, and the new management team, would acknowledge the huge contribution made over those past six years by Justin.
“But you look through this Waterford team, every one of those players was brought into the Waterford set-up by either Justin McCarthy or the man before him again, Gerald McCarthy. I’m sure both of those are happy men this (Monday) morning, as are most hurling people in the country.”
Keith Duggan (Irish Times)
“This team has singed the very souls of their people in their long quest to make it back to the September stage for the first time in almost half a century.
“Five times they came here on days like this since 1998 and on each time they discovered new dimensions of heartbreak. On a transcendent afternoon at Croke Park, it was as if all that fury and despondency were transformed into a performance that, in truth, not many people believed Waterford could still give.
“They met a young and fearless Tipperary team on the rise here. And during several periods when they might have respectably faded from the contest, Waterford rebelled against what seemed to be their fate in life.”
Martin Breheny (Irish Independent)
“Tipperary had wiped out a six-point lead which Waterford had built up over the first eight minutes and also countered Waterford’s 56th-minute goal with one of their own a minute later to give themselves every opportunity of clinching a place in the final.
“But there was something different about Waterford this time. Burrowing deep into their spirit, they unleashed a powerful finish which yielded five points over the closing 10 minutes.
“They remained calm and focused under pressure, almost as if they felt that the gods were on their side as they pursued one of the most vital victories in the county’s history.
“A place in the All-Ireland final for the first time since 1963 was the least they deserved after as brave a performance as Waterford have ever produced.”
Edited by Dermot Keyes
