Waterford Ladies Footballers Face Wexford in South East Derby

Waterford Ladies Footballers last weekend began their Division Three campaign in the National Football League with a big win over Offaly at the Gold Coast Grounds.

This weekend, Waterford are on the road for their second game in this years league when they take on a Wexford side that Offaly beat in last years Leinster and All-Ireland Junior Finals.

Last weekend, at Grantstown, the same venue for this weekends game, Wexford suffered a loss to John Leahy’s Tipperary who Waterford play in the third series of games.

Wexford last weekend fielded six debutants from the start in their game against a strong Tipperary outfit who included eight of the team that played Cavan in last years All-Ireland Intermediate Final and as a result the Premier Counties greater experience told as they raced into a 1-3 to 0-1 lead with fifteen minutes of the game played, the goal coming from Lorraine O’Shea on three minutes.

Full Forward Fiona Bennett on her debut hit a goal for Wexford which gave her side some hope, cutting Tipperary’s lead to a point, but at the break they trailed 1-7 to 1-2.

The home side played well in the third quarter, hitting points from Julie Coakley, Maria Byrne and Katie Redmond but the closest they could get to their opponents was three points.

Wexford had goalkeeper Katie Sludds sent off when she pulled down Mairead Morrissey and from the resulting penalty, Bernie Ryan who was making her debut in the Blue and Gold shirt made no mistake and from there on in there was only going to be one outcome.

Substitute Chantelle Martins in injury time at the end of the game put a gloss on the score board, putting over three frees and in doing so possibly won for herself a place in the team from the start this weekend.

Waterford in their game despite only leading at the break by four points were always in control.

Margaret Revins started at full forward and the Old Parish Club player really impressed hitting 2-1 while Michelle Ryan hit 0-7.

For many years when Waterford were the number one team in the country, Áine Wall was one of the most ruthless players in the game, and right now another Ballymacarbry player with the same surname – Aileen Wall is one of the most dangerous forwards around.

She was another stand out players for Waterford finishing the game with 1-3.

The second half was all Waterford as Michelle Ryan, Aileen Wall, Margaret Revins, Linda Wall and Hannah Landers all registered scores for the home side while at the opposite end of the field, the Waterford defence were able to hold the visitors scoreless in the second half.

In the second half, Manager Pat O’Brien was able to send on some of the outstanding young players that have won honours with Waterford on the underage front giving them some experience at playing at the highest level, something that will no doubt will benefit the players in the future and they will be hoping to have done enough again this weekend to earn a run.

This will be another game that manager Pat O’Brien will have earmarked to collect the maximum points available which would set the team up nicely for much tougher games in the weeks to come against much tougher opposition in the likes of Tipperary and Armagh, but while the team will be confident of winning, they will not be under-estimating the challenge of Wexford who will want to not fall further behind the teams that won the first time out.

In other games this weekend Tipperary will welcome Armagh to Grangemockler, Offaly and Leitrim will play at O’Brien Park in Tullamore and at Newtown Cashel Longford have home advantage against Sligo.

 

Tesco Homegrown NFL Div 3 Division 3

	Played	Won	Lost	Drawn	Points For	Points Against	Points Diff	Points
Waterford	1	1	0	0	23	8	15	3
Leitrim	1	1	0	0	36	24	12	3
Tipperary	1	1	0	0	18	12	6	3
Longford	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Armagh	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Wexford	1	0	1	0	12	18	-6	0
Sligo	1	0	1	0	24	36	-12	0
Offaly	1	0	1	0	8	23	-15	0