It goes without saying that the Kilkenny hurlers are hard beat. But is there an approach which yields some dividends against them?
Waterford will be looking for answers ahead of a crucial All-Ireland semi-final against the reigning champions and former Tipperary star Eoin Kelly looked back on the fruits of his own experiences against Brian Cody's side.
"I remember the couple of times we performed well against Kilkenny - and even the time we did beat them - Ger Loughnane had said before, back at the end of the 2000s, if you stay with Kilkenny, try and get them in the last 10 minutes," he said on Off The Ball tonight.
"When Eamon O'Shea came into us, his approach was 'get them in the first minute, lads, get them early and let them chase you down'. It's amazing, the public out there listen to a lot of the pundits and everyone was saying, 'if you can stay with Kilkenny ...' But we definitely approached it different. We wanted to have Kilkenny on the back foot, have them four or five points down and have them chasing you down. We found that that definitely had you more competitive and I think if you were in a game with Kilkenny with 10 minutes to go, a lot of times they have the experience to push on so that's what I'd hope to see from Waterford at the weekend: that the first minute or two or three ... every minute is vital for Waterford. If they can get the scores on the board, the next score [is important] because they missed those in the Munster final against Tipp and it proved very costly."
Listen to the full preview with Eoin and former Kilkenny corner-back Micheal Kavanagh via the podcast player:
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