With De La Salle and Mount Sion renewing their rivalry in a club championship quarter-final this afternoon - in the hope of joining Saturday quarter-final winners Ballygunner and Passage in the county semis - this week's RTÉ GAA Podcast was something of a Waterford hurling special.
Two former Déise senior managers from both sides of the Waterford city club divide, in the shape of Derek McGrath and Paraic Fanning, were on hand to talk us through the rivalry.
"It's been lively," said McGrath of the healthy sense of competition on and off the field between his own De La Salle, Mount Sion and the recently dominant Ballygunner within the city.
"From our point of view, we would have seen Ballygunner and Mount Sion dominate county finals year after year and you're looking at county finals for years and you're thinking, 'will we ever be involved?'
"So there was almost an inherent jealousy towards the other two teams to be honest in terms of how they went about their business.
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"Paraic played in 10 county finals [with Mount Sion] and won five and I'm there thinking, 'Jaysus!'
"It's like when you read at the end of The Sunday Game, 'Jackie Tyrrell, nine All-Irelands'. You're nearly saying to yourself, 'Jesus!'
"So when we made our breakthrough in '08 and it came on the back of John [Mullane] beginning to dominate the county scene... we'd been in the final in '05, having beaten Mount Sion for the first time ever in championship in the semi-final after receiving some unbelievable pummellings at their hands over the years."
McGrath pointed to De La Salle's Féile winning team of '99 as a key core foundation of the side that went on to enjoy senior championship success.
"You had a period where all the basis of all the work that was being done at underage, started to come to fruition and there was a bit more belief there than ever," he added.
But with Ballygunner now the dominant force on the Waterford club scene, winning 15 of their 18 titles since 1992 and a regular presence at the latter end of competition, the former Waterford manager pointed out: "You could see a situation where Ballygunner will be involved in the next 10 semi-finals of Waterford and people just have to accept that and try to get up there with them and work as hard as them."
Fanning agreed with McGrath's view on Ballygunner's streak of dominance, saying: "The bar is there and you've got to get up to it. I don't think it's a bad thing for a team to dominate.
"It doesn't mean hurling stops in every other club and parish in the county; it certainly doesn't. If anything people work harder to get up there and the end result is a spread of players from around the county."
Listen to the RTÉ GAA Podcast at Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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