Waterford Travel to Aughrim

Waterford Senior Footballers make the journey to Aughrim for second time this year on Saturday, having been paired with the ‘Garden County’ in the first round of the All-Ireland Qualifiers.

When the sides met in the National Football League back in early March, Waterford shocked the home side winning 4-7 to 1-12 with Ballinacourty’s sharp shooter Mark Ferncombe hitting a hat-trick of goals in the first quarter of the game.

Since then much has changed. Waterford ended this years National Football League disappointedly having been expected to be one of the sides challenging for the two promotion spots, while Wicklow ended the campaign with a trip to Croke Park and a place in the third division of the National League in 2013.

Games between the two sides have been close in recent years and on averages Waterford possibly have the upper hand between the sides.

Waterford’s side in many of these games has remained largely unchanged which is a little worrying as it suggests, if we do not know already that there is not a lot of talent up to inter county standard coming through, which does not bode well for Waterford when this present group of players, many of who are in or around the age of 30 decide to call a day to their inter county football days.

Under Mick O’Dwyer, many players in Wicklow came crawling out from under the woodwork to pull on a royal blue shirt and many of those players proved to be fine footballers.

However, since the Waterville man stood down from the Wicklow scene, so too have many of these players. Some are out injured most notably Leighton Glynn who picked up an injury playing against Meath in the Leinster Championship, while others for whatever reason have left the panel which has some in Wicklow asking searching questions.

Some if not all the players brought in to replace those that are missing appear to be fine footballers, something bourn out by they winning this years League final.

Waterford’s last known outing was against Limerick in the first round of the Munster Championship back in May.

At Half time that day, Waterford looked to be in contention as they trailed by just a point but they failed to score in the second half and lost the game 2-12 to 0-7.

What Waterford have managed to do in the meantime remains to be seen.

For the two weeks or so while the Waterford hurlers prepared to play Clare and after some rounds of the club championship were played after the footballers played Limerick some work would have been done. The week after the hurlers game with Clare, little or nothing would have been done as again the players went back to their clubs, buts expected that some work was done in the last few days.

This is far from ideal heading into this weekends game bit for now its something that G.A.A. supports will have to put up with until our championship structures are changed for the better or otherwise.

Waterford have made a number of changes to the team that played Limerick for the game in Aughrim.

Stephen Enright comes in between the posts for Kieran Cotter. Paul Whyte who was selected to play against Limerick but did not start is also named as is more crucially Gary Hurney who returns to the county colours after a suspension and injury. Liam O Lionáin also comes in which is to be welcomed as his pace could well cause trouble for the Wicklow backs who may be forced to either leave him off or to foul him and maybe risk picking up a yellow card or two.

On paper, Waterford have what it takes to win. Will they remain to be seen. If they do, it would be nice if Waterford were to get a home game in the draw for the next phase of the draw as year after year, Waterford are travelling to play in the qualifiers.

WATERFORD team to play Wicklow: Stephen Enright; Maurice O’Gorman, Thomas O’Gorman, Kieran Connery; Tony Grey, Shane Briggs, Wayne Hennessy; Sean Dempsey, Patrick Hurney; Liam Ó Lonáin, Paul Whyte, Cillian O’Keeffe, Mark Ferncombe, Gary Hurney, J.J. Hutchinson.