Wexford's 1996 All-Ireland winning captain Martin Storey doesn't subscribe to the theory that Kilkenny are a team in transition.

Speaking to The Irish Independent ahead of tomorrow's Leinster SHC semi-final in Nowlan Park, Storey stated: "I'd love to be in transition and have the team that they have.

"I'm not a gambler, but I put a tenner on them at the start of the year to win the All-Ireland again.

"I mean the team that won everything might be coming to an end, but there's a new one coming that might be as good. That's how I'm looking at it.

"If you were to pick your best 15 in the country, you'd still have maybe eight Kilkenny lads on it. Well, I would anyway. So how could you really say they're in transition?"

As regards Wexford's chances, Storey says there is a different mindset amongst their emerging crop of players and that the Model County will travel in confidence rather than hope.

"The difference now is that our younger players don't have the baggage of being beaten by 20 points by Kilkenny.

"That hasn't happened in the last four or five years. We have young lads going out now believing they can win.

"Whereas you go back six or seven years, we had lads going out trying to do a damage limitation job. If you got beat by eight points, it was, 'Oh Jesus, it was a good performance!'

"Our lads don't have that big fear in the back of their heads now, where they're thinking, 'I hope we don't get destroyed today!' They're going in saying, 'If we compete today, we can win this!' There's no comparison in those two mindsets.

"Remember when Kilkenny were destroying everybody? Well, we probably got the brunt of that. We got beaten by margins like 19 and 21 points. Like, that's soul-destroying, that's heavy to come back from. It starts to feel pointless when you're getting beat like that.

"So it's nice to be a Wexford supporter again, which it hasn't been. It was nice last year being a Wexford man, that you weren't getting your arse kicked everywhere you went. It was lovely travelling to Nowlan Park and Ennis, knowing you were able to walk in with your chest out and your head up.

"That's a lovely feeling for Wexford supporters now."

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