Today (November 24th) is the official date that inter-county Gaelic Games sides are allowed to return to collective training.
The rule applies to hurling and football, but camogie and ladies' football sides are not compelled to that date and are allowed to return to training when they see fit.
Now that the county season is back upon us once again, it would be expected that all the Waterford sides - hurling, camogie, and men's & ladies' football - will be back out on the training field preparing for the start of their respective leagues in the spring.
The hurlers will be out with Davy Fitzgerald, the ladies' footballers will have Pat Sullivan running drills, and the men's football side will be getting to grips with new manager Paul Shankey, but the camogie team are still up in the air, with no new manager appointed yet.
The Previous Management Team
Sean Power announced his departure from the setup on November 2nd, to the surprise of many. The Mount Sion club man spent one year at the helm, guiding the Déise to the All-Ireland final and securing Division One camogie for 2024.
He told WLR Sport that he was vacating his position with an "incredibly heavy heart," but did not see any way to stay involved owing to family commitments.
Since then, Waterford Camogie were given cause to celebrate when Beth Carton was named senior Camogie Player of the Year for 2023, along with her Captain Lorraine Bray winning a third All-Star, and teammate Vikki Faulkner winning her first.
While they capped off the 2023 season with their night of celebration in Croke Park, the fact remains that Waterford are one of the only counties without a senior management team confirmed for 2024.
The Competition
The defending All-Ireland Champions Cork have confirmed that Ger Manley will take over from Matthew Twomey, Tipperary have Dennis Kelly in charge, Kilkenny have appointed Peter Cleere, Galway have ratified Cathal Murray, while Dublin, Clare and Wexford all have management teams in place heading into the Christmas period.
Whoever is appointed to the role will have a shorter lead-in time than could be hoped for. Since the Camogie Association does not stipulate an allowed return date, counties will already be out training these past few weeks as their club games wind up.
This time of the year is when winter training programs are put together with management teams monitoring the player's progress through stats, GPS trackers etc. The Déise players are already training, albeit individually, without a management team overseeing their workload.
What Came Before
Another point worth noting is that the new manager will be the fifth person in seven seasons to take charge of this crop of Waterford players. Donal O Rourke was in charge for 18 & 19, Fergal O'Brien was at the helm for 2020, Derek Lyons spent 2021 and 2022 as manager and then Sean Power gave his one year in 2023. The fact that only two managers in these past seven years have served more than one season tells us more about the state of Camogie in the country than anything specific to Waterford.
With the county set to play Division One in the League next year, time is very much running out if the team are to be prepared as well as possible for the challenge that comes with playing the likes of Cork, Galway, Kilkenny and the other top sides.
The Waterford Camogie County Board have told WLR Sport that an appointment is expected in the next two weeks.
