'He's a Rolls-Royce of a hurler' - Waterford's rising star
LIAM CAHILL’S LAST act as Waterford manager was to preside over one of those dispiriting Munster SHC round-robin defeats that the county is all too familiar with.
That was three years ago, a heavy loss to Clare in Ennis closing the door on Waterford’s championship campaign that summer and, ultimately, Cahill’s time in charge.
Before he left though, Cahill threw teenager Mark Fitzgerald the number 17 jersey for that dozen-point defeat and left him on for the whole game. Fitzgerald had only featured once as a Waterford senior prior to that, coming on as a sub against Laois in the league earlier that year, in 2022.
Remarkably, the Passage man has played every single minute of every single championship game for Waterford since. As far as first impressions go, it was clearly a good one, despite the wretched circumstances.
Three years on, Fitzgerald has developed into not just Waterford’s most important defender but one of the very best in the game and is preparing for his 12th championship match in a row this weekend, a run that stretches all the way back to that debut against Clare.
Davy Fitzgerald, who took over from Cahill, was just as enamoured because he started his namesake in every league and Championship game that Waterford played in 2024. So far in 2025, under Peter Queally, Fitzgerald is the only Waterford player to have started all nine of their Division 1B and Championship games.
Cahill is in charge of Tipperary now and may regret igniting Fitzgerald’s county career as he did in 2022 when the versatile back arrives in Thurles this Sunday for their crucial Round 4 provincial encounter.
The really exciting thing from Waterford’s perspective is that Fitzgerald is still just 21.
“Waterford people know him but the wider hurling circles are only getting to know him,” pundit Cyril Farrell told the Waterford News & Star back in March. “He could be anything. To me, he is a potential All-Star.”
Queally was previously part of the Waterford backroom before taking on the manager’s gig. So he tracked Fitzgerald’s development carefully and made him captain, albeit in Dessie Hutchinson’s injury enforced absence, for their first game of this year.
“Proud day for Mark, his family and all of us here in Gaultier,” declared the Gaultier GAA club, whom Fitzgerald plays football for.
“Mark, is of course, the son of Edmond and Orla Fitzgerald and as we all know Skinny Fitzgerald is one of the club’s all-time great players, a brilliant club man and both Skinny and Orla will be proud parents.”
Football may be in Fitzgerald’s DNA but it’s in the small ball game where he is on the cusp of stardom. Despite Waterford’s defeat to Limerick last time out in the Munster SHC, he was still named the GAA’s Hurler of the Week, taking nearly 2,500 votes.
“He really is your typical Waterford half-back that they’ve been able to bring onto the scene, a good attacking half-back, good and strong in the tackle, a good defender as well, and good stick work, I think he has it all,” said former Clare star Ollie Baker this month on the Smaller Fish podcast.
The suggestion was made during that same conversation that Fitzgerald, who has scored in seven of Waterford’s nine competitive games this year, may be better off as a forward. Baker didn’t agree.
“I think he’s more comfortable facing the ball,” he argued.
The University of Limerick will probably agree because Fitzgerald’s defensive excellence was central to their latest Fitzgibbon Cup triumph, in February.
Just like with Waterford, Fitzgerald played every single minute of UL’s five-game Fitzgibbon campaign which ended with a final win over DCU, bar a brief blood substitution late in the round robin defeat of holders Mary I.
He was later included on the Fitzgibbon Cup Team of the Year at number six though his versatility is such that he is as comfortable man-marking close to his own goal as he is tearing down the pitch towards the opposition’s goal with the sliotar in hand.
It is a conundrum for Cahill this weekend, how to stifle the impact of a player who is primarily a defender but who can, as he displayed against Offaly in the Division 1B league final win, reel off three points from play and a goal assist largely at his ease.
“He can play anywhere from number two to number seven,” said former Waterford manager Michael Ryan, analysing Fitzgerald in 2024.
“I think he’s a Rolls-Royce of a hurler. He’s a really good lad. He loves the physical stuff. He’s comfortable on the ball. Ideally, I’d like to see him play at wing-back, I think there’s always a score or two in him.”
Fitzgerald replaced Austin Gleeson when he came on for his debut in that league game against Laois in 2022. Gleeson was once the bright young hope of Waterford hurling though Fitzgerald has also replaced him now in that position.
He was only a rookie in late 2023 when entrusted with media duties at the launch of the 2024 Munster hurling league.
“We need to take more ownership, as players,” said Fitzgerald that day. He’s been as good as his word since.
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