Waterford parted ways with their manager midweek causing widespread speculation over the reasoning as they prepared for what is to be the biggest game of the season as they travel to Richmond Park, to take on First Division Playoff victors UCD this evening.

Ian Hendon joins the Deise club to support Dave Bell and the coaching staff following the departure of Marc Bircham.

The students make the eight-kilometer journey with two of the division's nominees for PFAI player of the year in Colm Whelan who has scored 22 goals so far season and Liam Kerrigan who has netted 12. Waterford's top scorer John Martin only bagged 10 league goals for the season.

With the south eastern side winning their last four meetings, they last met in September in the FAI Cup when the Waterford snatched a 3-2 win in time added on. Goals from Junior Quitirna, Phoenix Patterson and Prince Mutswunguma saw the Blues progress to the next round of the Cup, despite the Students taking the lead twice.

Speaking ahead of the game waterford keeper goalkeeper Brian Murphy said:

“It’s a massive game. We said four months ago if we got a play off from the position we were in, I think we’d be doing well. Our form has been that good that we got a lot of hope that we would get out of it but we just ran out of games in the end.

“We’ve played them [UCD] already so we’re not going in blind, we know what they’re about but they’ve got very good attacking players so we need to be at our best.

“It’s not normal circumstances this week for the players because of the behind the scenes stuff, but at the end of the day we’re paid to play football and we’ll regroup the lads. We’ve had good training sessions and we’ll know how we’re going to approach Friday and give it a good shot.”

In team news Waterford will be without Prince Mutswunguma through injury. Darragh Power, John Martin, Jack Stafford and Greg Halford return from suspension.