St Martins boss has heaps of praise for club and county stalwart Daithí Waters

St Martins will be in Leinster Club Championship action this weekend..

After defeating St Annes in the Wexford SHC final, they will be taking on Kildare champions Naas (away) in an exciting encounter this Sunday.

Ahead of the match, St Martins manager Daithí Hayes had heaps of praise for club stalwart and former Wexford football and hurler, Daithí Waters.

“When he talks, you listen. All the lads have huge respect for him, as would I, and I played with Daithí. I won a county football title with Daithí in 2013, so I played alongside him, hurling and football, for years.

“He has huge experience with Wexford in that team, unlucky not to win a Leinster final over a couple of years. When you’ve a 37 year old putting in that effort, fighting for his place. This year he started in round four, he was injured for the first couple. Then, he took his place and just kept the jersey.”

It was an approach that served Martin’s well under Hayes. Combining craft and graft, Martin’s earned silverware. “When you’ve lads like that, fighting for their place, and the younger lads see that, you can’t buy that experience and you can’t buy that desire,” Hayes remarks.

“We had a good couple of days afterwards, I think Daithí was smiling for 48 or 72 hours, he knew how hard it was for him personally to get that title.

“He had one from ’17 and ’19, your first is always the sweetest, but I think this meant a lot more to him. He has young kids, he put in such an effort, and he got the reward for that,” he told GAA.ie.

The St Martins faithful will be hoping that Daithí Waters will do the business again against Naas this weekend to help the team progress into a Leinster Senior Club Championship semi-final.