Making it out of Munster would be one of Davy Fitgerald's greatest feats - Shane McGrath

Shane McGrath believes that Waterford qualifying from the Munster Hurling Championship this year would rank among Davy Fitzgerald's most significant managerial achievements after an indifferent start to his second season in charge and an apparent lack of faith from supporters.

The Déise's place in Division 1B (aka Division 2) for next year had already been confirmed before they recorded a fourth defeat in five league games on Saturday, going down to Kilkenny in front of a home crowd of less than 3,000.

Speaking after the previous week's loss to Wexford, All-Ireland winning player and manager Fitzgerald was confident things would be different by the time they began the Munster campaign (at home to Cork on 21 April) but McGrath is not convinced.

"They're going to be judged by the Cork game and maybe the whole thing is coming together, but at the moment, it’s going to take one of his greatest managerial feats to get the whole thing together and get performances to get out of the Munster championship," the former Tipperary star told the RTÉ GAA podcast.

"I do believe that the Waterford players, for the majority, are believing in what's going on down there, with the tactics, the way they’re setting up. It’s just the rest of us from the outside don’t seem to get it.

"That’s the way I feel, the way a lot of Waterford hurling people feel about it.

"They've won one or two [three] league games since Davy has been manager. They won their one championship game last year but they were out of the competition by the time they played that game against Tipp, who were very poor that day.

"They have the stadium now, they can play their home games at Walsh Park [again]. It used to be a fortress, it wasn't in the league. The crowd was very small.