In March 2011, Liam Dunne sounded an alarmist tone about the direction Wexford hurling was taking.
As Kilkenny developed into the greatest winning machine in the history of the game, Wexford were in steady decline and when their paths intersected, the beatings became increasingly severe.
Having scored a famous last gasp victory in 2004, Wexford remained competitive against Kilkenny the following year, losing by three points. But it was eight in 2006 and stretched to 15 and 10 points in their two Championship meetings in 2007. Then up to 17 in 2008.
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By 2011, Galway had been added to the Leinster Championship and Dublin had overtaken them, with Wexford having just endured a two-year spell in Division Two.
"I absolutely hate saying this,” said Dunne at the time, “but there has to be a danger that we could slip back to Christy Ring competition standard in the near future.”
There was no Joe McDonagh Cup back then so the Christy Ring was effectively its equivalent. But the top tier contained 14 teams at the time compared to 11 now, so there was greater insulation for Wexford.
To be fair to Dunne, he wasn’t just sniping from the margins and took on the Wexford manager’s job later that year, completing five seasons.
There were flashes of encouragement during his reign as they eliminated reigning All-Ireland champions Clare in 2014 and also beat Waterford that year, while there was a first win over Cork in 60 years in 2016, but sustained progress was hard to come by as Wexford were still vulnerable to heavy beatings.
After a dearth of underage success, three successive Leinster under-21 titles from 2013-15 were timely and Davy Fitzgerald, Dunne’s successor, harnessed the best of the talent from those sides, though there was nothing inevitable about the success that he enjoyed, which culminated in the 2019 Leinster senior title.
In the subsequent All-Ireland semi-final, Wexford led 14-man Tipperary by five points after 46 minutes. Waiting in the final was a Kilkenny side that they had already drawn with and beaten in that year’s Championship.
They blew it, losing by two points to the eventual champions in the end, but elevating Wexford to such heights was arguably the standout achievement of Fitzgerald’s managerial career.
Since 2019, Wexford have played 16 Championship games and won just five, two of them against Laois and one each against Antrim and Kerry, with last year’s defeat of Kilkenny the only result of note.
And having blown a 17-point lead against Westmeath yesterday, they are now on the brink of dropping to the second tier.
Wexford were in the throes of creeping decline when Dunne sounded his fears 12 years ago, but this time, with relegation now a very real prospect, their fall-off has been painfully abrupt.
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