Recently-retired Waterford star Dave Bennett has blasted the tactics used by the Deise in last September's crushing All-Ireland hurling final loss to Kilkenny. The Lismore man, who was a substitute, revealed how the Davy Fitzgerald's men were instructed to exercise aggression early on in the match - a tactic which proved futile against the rampant Cats. "It was mind-blowing," Bennett recalls. "In eight or nine years did you ever see Eoin Murphy hitting someone before a ball was thrown in - or Declan Prendergast? "The media, the commentators and the general public - it was the one thing that everyone commented on. The amount of people that rang me in the following weeks about it was incredible. "It was disappointing because in my opinion this current crop of Waterford players have built up so much goodwill over a periofd of ten or 12 years. On the day of the All-Ireland final, with the viewership that game got, to have the country looking at what some of our players were doing... players who have given so much. "It was like 12 years of goodwill was wiped out in ten seconds. That's what it felt like from people ringing me and the conversations I had. That's what a lot of players involved in the match would have thought. "We felt it was unfair on us - and it wasn't the lads' fault," he added, in apparent reference to managerial instructions. Tweet

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