The Blues have their first home game of the season this weekend when Dundalk make the trip to the RSC.
The Lilywhites are one of three premier division teams that Ian Morris's side will face in their warm-up games, with Derry and Bohemians also set to line out opposite them.
Last weekend, the pre-season got off to the best possible start when Waterford stuck five past Cobh Ramblers - maintaining a clean sheet in the process. Speaking to WLR Sport this week, the manager was happy with the progress they've made so far but reminds us that the preparations for the first division campaign are far from over.
"Yeah, that's nice. Scoring goals and having a clean sheet is nice, but preseason is difficult to gauge. You don't know where other teams are. You don't know where you are. You're trying to find the rhythm. For me anyway - I tell the players I don't know who's gonna walk out on that pitch to start the game on the 18th of February, so everyone has an opportunity to go stake a claim."
With three games in their legs (two behind closed doors) to date, Morris is focussing on having the team ready for what will be an arduous campaign in the first division. He is still light on players ahead of the first competitive games, with further signings expected in the coming days.
"The main thing for us is fitness - it's minutes in boys' legs, it's keeping players available for every single training session, available for every game; and we've done that really well so far. The staff have been absolutely fantastic and then the players have fed in well behind them so it's been a really good four weeks"
While the pre-season games need to be ticked off the list, the club also have the Munster senior cup on the horizon. They have a date with Treaty United next Tuesday (Feb 1st) in Markets Field. The competition which was not played last year was last claimed by Rockmount in 2019-20, while the Blues last lifted the cup in 2012-2013 when they beat Avondale United.
"Now we're starting to get into the thick of it. We've three games coming up now Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday, so it's a big week for minutes in legs. We're starting to build what we've been working on for the past four weeks. Hopefully, we can start transferring what we've done on the training pitch into match nights and start putting together good performances."
