The verbal fireworks continued long after the final whistle at the RSC as Waterford manager Marc Bircham savaged his players following their 3-1 defeat to Shamrock Rovers.
Two goals from Danny Mandroiu and a header from Sean Hoare saw the newly crowned champions fight back and beat Waterford 3-1, on a night marred by crowd trouble.
After John Martin opened the scoring inside 15 minutes, fireworks exploded from the away end which led to referee Rob Hennessy bringing both teams off the pitch.
However it was the nature of his side’s defending that had the Waterford manager fuming after the final whistle and he launched an astonishing broadside at his own players, insisting that he was 'disgusted’ by them and that they deserve to be relegated.
Bircham was particularly furious with Rovers first and second goals, with the equaliser coming from a corner-kick and the second a free-kick.
"[I’m] disgusted in my players," he said. "We don’t deserve to stay up, if we defend set-pieces like that we don’t deserve to be in the league.
"From the 91st minute in the Derry game, we’ve let three of the worst set-pieces in that I can see. We let another corner in tonight and a wide free-kick where someone’s headed it in the middle of our box and no-one’s made contact.
"They know their jobs, the players know who they are, those that have let us down. The players have let a lot of the team down in the last two games and if we defend set-pieces like that we don’t deserve to be in the league.
"It’s disgusting, they’re not doing their jobs. When it comes to the pressure time of the season they’re not doing their jobs, so it doesn’t matter how well we play."
Waterford had kept Rovers at bay until conceding Mandroiu’s equaliser with 20 minutes to go and for Bircham, that was evidence that his game-plan had been working well.
"The game-plan was working perfectly, they had not really had any chances and if you defend set-pieces like that, we don’t deserve to be in the league and we should lose the play-off final and go down.
"I’m disgusted in the players, they’ve got their jobs to do. You do your jobs in those two games and we’re up, we stay in this league.
"They’ve got to take a good hard look at themselves. No matter how many plaudits they get and how well they’ve been doing, you can’t do that as professional footballers.
"I’ve not said it a lot and I’ve always backed the players up, but I can’t back them on that. They’ve let the club down tonight by not doing their job on set plays."
The Waterford manager also denied that the first-half incidents involving fireworks detonating above the pitch had anything to do with the game’s outcome.
When asked whether that had any impact on the result, he replied. "Not at all. No, that’s not an issue. Fireworks on the pitch it was a bit dangerous but did it affect on set-pieces?
"Maybe you can tell in my voice how fuming I am and I’ve let it be known. It doesn’t matter all the hard work we’ve done in winning games.
"In pressure situations you need big players who man up and defend and we haven’t done that."
