Waterford Camogie Team hoping to make it third time lucky not for the first time

In the last few years, anybody with an interest in sport in Waterford cannot but fail to have noticed that Camogie in Waterford has come on in leaps and bounds.

The breakthrough happened ten years ago when after some good work in the years before it, the counties under 16 team captained by Lismore’s Laura Buckley, the county won the under 16 ‘B’ final.

Some of the players involved in that team soon began to make an even bigger impact and they soon began to break into the counties minor and junior teams.

Two Junior All-Ireland finals, one after a replay were lost before another breakthrough was made with the winning of the junior final in 2011 with members of the 2004 under 16 panel involved.

In the past two years the side has reached the semi finals of the Intermediate championship, loosing both to strong Galway sides who in 2012 lost to Derry after a replay in the final and last year beat Limerick in the final.

Sometimes when a county or club begin to taste success they feel that hard work is all done and began to let up, but not in Waterford.

The county has seen the Under 16 team win a Munster ‘B’ Final in the last two years. They lost last years All-Ireland final and with many of that panel still in place are involved in next weekend’s All-Ireland Final which they will be confident of winning. The Minor ‘B’ All-Ireland Final was won this year, Presentation College from Waterford City played in a Junior All-Ireland Final earlier this year and over the past three years, Gailltir and De La Salle have performed better than anyone could have expected at the National Féile Camogie Competition. And lets not forget what Lismore achieved earlier this year as well.  

This Saturday, Waterford are involved in a third successive All-Ireland Intermediate Camogie semi final and will be hoping to make it third time lucky, and while they face a major task in lowering the colours of Limerick, a win for Waterford on Saturday at Dr Cullen Park in Carlow will do the game of Camogie in Waterford untold good.

There can be no disputing that both Waterford and Limerick are at this stage of the competition on merit. The only disappointing thing about this game is that it is not a final, as were it a clash at Croke Park, it would be a fitting finale to this year’s championship.

Limerick will go into this weekend’s semi final as the favourites, and rightly so. But this is something that will not pose any lost sleep for Waterford, as the county often plays best when it is considered the underdog, a tag that sits well on the shoulders of most Waterford teams.

Limerick in the National League played at a higher level than Waterford in the league something that the experts will tell us is something that should benefit them.

They missed out on a place in the semi finals narrowly, loosing in a series of play offs with Galway and Clare after the three finished level on points behind Kilkenny in Group one for the second semi final spot from the group.

Limerick got off to a good start in the league recording an impressive 2-16 to 0-4 win away to Kildare and since then have backed it up with wins over Antrim, Galway and Tipperary.

In Niamh Mulcahy, Limerick has a gem of a player. In the four games her side has played to date, she has put over thirty-eight points and if given the chance this weekend against Waterford will put up a good personal tally on the score board from play as well as placed balls.

However, if Waterford manage to keep Niamh Mulcahy quite, then it could mean that others including Aoife Sheehan who has hit 5-7 for the side in the championship up to now, Caoimhe Costello, Rebecca Delee and Deborah Murphy could come to the fore.

If Limerick go into this Saturday’s semi final in a confident mood, so too will Waterford.

Playing in division two of the league, Waterford did not manage to win any game, but it should be remembered that they played the league without their Lismore players who were helping their club to All-Ireland success around the same time as the National League was in progress and some then took a very short break from the game to recharge the batteries after twelve months on the go.

In the Munster Championship back in May, Waterford took on Tipperary at the Ragg and lost the game by just two points. People will tell you that there is nothing to be taken from a moral victory, but this was a very good result for Waterford.

The championship began for Waterford with a 1-9 to 1-7 win away to Meath, a side that had caused Waterford plenty headaches in recent years, and who had beaten Waterford earlier in the year at Walsh Park.

A big win was recorded over Cork at Carriganore which was followed with a loss to Kilkenny at Callan, but Waterford guaranteed their place in the semi finals when they recorded a good win over Wexford at Fraher Field.

The Waterford team under the management of Niall O’Donnell this year shows a number of changes to the side used by Mark Cooney in the past few years.

However he still has available to him some very experienced players in the likes of Emma Hannon, Mairead Murphy, Pauline Cunningham, Nicola Morrissey, Shona Curran, Karen Kelly, Fiona Morrissey and of course Trish Jackman.

There is also some very promising young players and some new blood that Niall O’Donnell is able to call upon including the likes of Becky Kavanagh, Valerie O’Brien, Sinead Cummins, Ruth Geoghegan and Lorraine Bray.

 Both sides will go into Saturday afternoon’s game believing they can win. Limerick will believe that the experience of reaching last years final and playing in division one in the league this year will stand to them.

But Waterford too will feel they are in with a shout. A lot of the panel were around with the past two years when they reached this stage of the competition, and even before this when Waterford were involved in three Junior All-Ireland finals in a row (four if you include replays), experienced would be gained in helping Lismore win the All-Ireland Club final and also the younger members of the panel have come off excellent underage teams.

Waterford will go into the game as the underdog but have to believe they can win. Any player that is superstitious will have to believe in the power of three. The side played in three junior finals before they won one. Lismore played in three All-Ireland Club semi finals before they won one and then went on to win the final, and this is the third year in a row that Waterford are in an Intermediate semi final.