Waterford will open their Munster Championship account against Clare later this year in the lone quarter-final.
The Deise ripped down the Banner in last year's All-Ireland Quarterfinal in a six-goal thriller in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Intercounty training resumes this week and Waterford selector Stephen Frampton says it's great to be back.
"Look, the preferable route would have been straight into a semi-final look, you know that's fine, at least we’re hurling so that's the main thing. A tough draw against Clare and a bit of a wounded animal at the moment. We know how that can kind of galvanize a team as well. So we'll have it all to do."
The team will have to take the long route if they are to claim Munster silverware. Last year, they got the benefit of the draw and saw their way straight to a semi-final with Cork - this year, the cards didn't come up trumps.
"Look, we got the benefit of it last year, but that's, that's the luck of the draw. It's a difficult year, again, in that we're going to have five matches in six weeks for the league, and then almost straight into a championship."
With a reduced pre-season of just three weeks and then five league games, counties will be under pressure to be up to full readiness by the time a ball is thrown in for the showpiece competition, something that Frampton is well aware of.
"You're praying and hoping that we don't pick up too many injuries and that that is very much key to how successful a team will be during the year because there’s not a lot between a lot of the top teams, it's just the nature of the championships this year and last year, that you don't pick up too many injuries, because there's such a little time to recover, you know,"
"That's a massive challenge, you know, that, I suppose no county set up will have had to be able to deal with in the past., so that'll take a lot of skill from our strength and conditioning people, you know, and then, yeah, it'll be very difficult. As I say, you're going to have players picking up kind of strains and more muscular stuff, really, you know, with the stress that will be on the body going straight into competitive matches with which not much of preseason. Albeit they have been training on their own, but I suppose, there's no substitute for training in the group and doing some proper hard work."
Having fallen at the final hurdle last year with the favorites Limerick dominating in Croke Park - Waterford will have putten their demons behind them and set their sights on the challenges posed this year. Asked if they would have liked to have another crack at the Treaty county right from the start, Frampton wasn't so sure if any draw was better than another.
"You like to pit yourself against the top teams, and they are the top team, you know. Whatever the draw was going to be whether it was Cork, whether it was Tipp; whoever it was, it happens to be Clare, it was going to be very, very tough anyway, it always is in Munster."
"There was no preference there, I suppose the biggest preference might have been to get to a semi-final to get into that draw, but that's not to be this year. So we'll do the tough way."
With the training grounds set to re-open for intercounty teams this Monday (April 19th) it will herald a welcome change for the players and coaches who have spent the past months training at home and only meeting up on Zoom.
"We've been in constant contact with them albeit, we're all zoomed out at this stage, so we can't wait to see their faces tonight. That's [The All-Ireland] a long way behind us at this stage, we're just looking forward to the nature of what we're going through at the moment, we just can't wait to get out on the field now and open out the legs and get stuck into the training tonight. Last December won't be mentioned at all really, we've dealt with at really this stage"
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