An hour after Wexford had capitulated to Westmeath last May, when they had somehow coughed up a 17-point lead, the players and management gathered in a meeting room in Wexford Park. Everybody was still in shock. The whole afternoon was such a calamity of chaos that Wexford were on the brink of being relegated to the Joe McDonagh. More than their season was on the line. Wexford’s history, culture and identity was on the precipice.
The lack of confidence looked like a recipe for disaster. Hard and cold truths were spilled out. By the time the players met on Curracloe beach the following evening, the dish was simmering perfectly.
“Just over 24 hours after we lost to Westmeath, I knew we were ready,” Darragh Egan, Wexford manager last year, says. “Everybody in Wexford was ready. Everybody. No matter what has gone on before, the Wexford mentality just switches when it’s Kilkenny week.
“It’s almost like they take on an out-of-body experience. Lads just come to life. We were on the floor after losing to Westmeath but their attitude was, ‘We’ll be fine, we’re ready for this crowd.’ Wexford are a different breed when it is Kilkenny in front of them. The psyche is incredible.”
It needed to be on the day when the match oscillated wildly between desperation and elation. Wexford trailed by seven points early on before going seven up, then going two down after being nailed with three late Kilkenny goals. In danger of being counted out, Wexford replied with a relentless barrage, outscoring Kilkenny by 0-5 to 0-1. “There was never any panic,” Egan says.
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That state of mind seems inconceivable considering Wexford had spent the previous weekend in a fit of anxiety, dread and terror. Yet one of the great hurling anomalies of the past eight or nine years is that anyone is capable of beating Wexford — except Kilkenny.
Nothing encapsulates that reality more than Egan’s record against Westmeath and Kilkenny during his two years in charge; in three games against Westmeath, Wexford won, drew and lost; in four games against Kilkenny, Wexford won three and drew one.
Wexford’s draw with Westmeath in 2022 looked to have blown their chances of progressing in Leinster. It meant having to beat Kilkenny in the championship in Nowlan Park for the first time in their history a week later. Wexford did. “Wexford really don’t mind going to Nowlan Park,” Egan says. “It brings out the best in them.”
Just playing Kilkenny — no matter the venue — does as well. In their last nine league and championship meetings, Kilkenny have only won twice, one of which — the 2021 Leinster semi-final — was after extra time. Wexford’s recent record is all the more impressive considering it’s only a decade since they were still psychologically traumatised from being repeatedly bludgeoned by Kilkenny.
Between 2006 and 2015, Kilkenny won their five championship meetings by an aggregate of 77 points. Wexford had never known such hardship in the counties’ storied relationship, but the dynamic was completely different at underage for most of the same period.
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In 2013, the Wexford minors beat Kilkenny in the championship in Nowlan Park for the first time. When Wexford won three Leinster Under-21 titles in a row between 2013 and 2015, they beat Kilkenny in each of those years. In 2014, Wexford won by ten points. In the final a year later, Wexford whacked Kilkenny by 17 points.
When Davy Fitzgerald arrived in 2017, he harnessed that psychology and turned it into a wrecking ball. Wexford were still in Division 1B but they beat Kilkenny in a league quarter-final. Two months later, just two years after Kilkenny had annihilated them by 24 points, Wexford beat them in Leinster for the first time in 13 years.
“Underage, we always had a good record against Kilkenny,” Wexford’s Simon Donohue said last year. “It’s not that you ever fear a team but we know we can perform to a good level against them. But there’s no point just being able to raise our game for Kilkenny — it’s all the other teams we have to be able to do it for too.”
That has been a consistent issue. Westmeath beat Wexford for the first time in championship last year. Antrim did the same this year. That trend with this group even extends back to underage. After beating Kilkenny in the 2013 Leinster Under-21 final, Wexford lost to Antrim in the All-Ireland semi-final. Clare beat Antrim in the final by 22 points.
Where does that inconsistency come from? “It’s a concentration issue,” Egan says. Liam Griffin, who managed Wexford to the 1996 All-Ireland, believes it’s deeper again, encrypted in their DNA from genetic inheritance. “Wexford fellas are genuinely like that,” Griffin says. “I think it relates back to 1798 [rebellion]. It took them forever to rise up after all the persecution. It might sound like bullshit but we are very laid back.
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“Wexford is a beautiful county. The land is fantastic. My father came from Clare, where they had 25 acres of land but 24 of them were stones, and he moved every one of them. Wexford people might have got it too handy because the land was so good. They didn’t need to worry as much.”
One of the quirks with Wexford’s relationship with Kilkenny is that it does not stem from the kind of bitterness that defines other rivalries, despite history decreeing that it might. After the 1798 rebellion, the Wexford insurgents never forgave their Kilkenny counterparts from across the river Barrow who cautiously waited at their hillside camp during the Battle of New Ross. When the mood takes them, Wexford still accuse Kilkenny of “pissing on the powder” which relates to an incident with Fr Murphy’s insurgent group at a small battle in Castlecomer.
“It suited the Wexford narrative to say it was Kilkenny lads that pissed on the powder, but it was good-natured slagging,” Griffin says. “The lads around New Ross aren’t particularly fond of them but you won’t find too many Wexford fellas talking badly about Kilkenny. I could see the hatred Clare had for Limerick. I never saw Wexford hating anybody. Even when Kilkenny were hammering them, Wexford were never anti-Kilkenny.”
Much of that attitude is rooted in respect. As a Tipperary man, Egan compares Wexford-Kilkenny to the Cork-Tipp rivalry, which is also elucidated in esteem and historical reverence. Leinster has changed radically in the last two decades but Wexford-Kilkenny has always been the province’s richest rivalry, its most traditional fixture, where every day they meet is another opportunity for Wexford to accumulate more golden memories.
“Anytime Wexford played Kilkenny, it didn’t matter how we were going, we were going to get a result,” Egan says. “That was the atmosphere around the place. Wexford love the Kilkenny buzz. You could see it behind the players’ eyes. They turn into different animals when that black and amber jersey is coming.”
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The pressure has been ramped up again now. Wexford’s season is on the line again, but nobody has been feeling that strain. There’s a carnival atmosphere around the place. It’s Kilkenny week in Wexford.
Kilkenny v Wexford
Sunday, 2pm