Both Ken McGrath and Eoin Kelly paid tribute to the achievements of former manager Justin McCarthy in his time with Waterford after Sunday's historic win over Tipperary. While McGrath admitted that the weekend belong to current manager Davy Fitzgerald and the team, the defender could not look past what McCarthy had done with the during his time in charge with the Deise. "He came in the first day and everything started from there," admitted McGrath. "He came in with unbelievable enthusiasm and passion. He played like that as well. He has a great back room team behind him, just a pure professional setup and the detail is top-notch. "I suppose we were crying out for that at times, that attention. We won three Munster and League with Justin (McCarthy). We can't forget that too easily. We'd give great credit to Justin for what he done with us but times move on, things move on. We always had great time for Justin and good respect and I hope - I'm sure he's happy for us." Man of the Match Eoin Kelly, who scored 1-10 against Tipp, said that while the Waterford players decision to force out McCarthy after the Munster SHC first round defeat to Clare in June was what was necessary, he still believed that McCarthy was 'a good hurling man'. "We didn't like doing what we done. Justin was a nice man and a good hurling man. But we think we were missing that little something that we didn't know if we were going to get out of Justin. "There are lads in there in their 30s who have never played in an All-Ireland final; all they wanted to do was play in one. We just felt we needed something a little different just to get us there." Tweet

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