Waterford hurling boss Paraic Fanning feels that his side shouldn't have lost home advantage for their NHL opener against Offaly. The Déise were penalised for going on a training camp outside of the ten days prior to the Munster championship last summer and will now travel to Semple Stadium on Sunday to face the Faithful County.
"Very disappointed and probably a little bit angry about it," Fanning told WLR's Lár Na Páirce show. "It's happened now and we're going up there. To me, it's not a fair decision. Look, I can't do anything about that."
The Mount Sion man feels that Waterford supporters and businesses are the big losers. The last league or championship match to be staged in the county was last March when Clare visited Walsh Park.
Armagh and Laois also surrendered home comforts for the second round of the NFL. "The rules surrounding training camps are nonsensical really. There's no team going to go on a training camp ten days before a championship and that's the case across the board. If you're asking me do I think there were other teams on training camps? I do. It wasn't applied correctly to everybody and that's the problem I have with it."
Fanning is still determined to welcome Clare and Limerick to Walsh Park for the Munster championship this summer. "I'm hopeful that the games will be in Waterford, I'm quietly confident actually that they will be. We want the games in Waterford. It's nearly ten months now since we've had a home game and I don't think we should go through another summer without them."
Listen back to the full interview with Paraic Fanning from Friday's Lár Na Páirce.
https://soundcloud.com/wlrfmwaterford/paraic-fanning
