Stephen Bennett: You go from second best to worst in no time

In early April last, Waterford were the form team in hurling, widely touted as the most likely to challenge Limerick's supremacy.

Less than two months later they were out of the championship at the round-robin phase, making their final bow in a dismal loss against Clare in Ennis.

Shortly afterwards, Liam Cahill, who'd guided the team to an All-Ireland final in 2020, was gone, returning to take the job with his native county after Colm Bonnar's sacking.

All told, Waterford's journey in 2022 from flavour of the month to dead ducks was remarkably abrupt.

Scorer-in-chief Stephen Bennett was bemused by the narrative surrounding the team, though acknowledges that Waterford may not have timed their run correctly over the course of the season.

"You win a match and you're brilliant, you've seen that with us in the league, sure everyone told us we were the best thing in the world. Then you lose a match and you're the worst players in Ireland.

"You can go from the second best team in Ireland to the eighth best team by losing one or two matches.

"Probably somewhere in the middle is the answer.

"It's funny, we won the league and they said we were flying it and then we didn't get through Munster and they said we were tired.

"Kerry went away and won the league and went on to win the All-Ireland as well (in football), so I think it is easy to say we were tired.

"You saw with Limerick last year, I think they scored 11 points in their first League game. They obviously timed it perfect.

"Kerry can obviously do it for the year. Limerick seem to time it. People were saying they were going backwards (in the league) but they clearly weren't.

"I do think it's hard to stay at a peak level for four or five months. So maybe there was an element of that