Waterford good enough to pull off one those ‘unexpected wins’ against Offaly

Two sides with the most disappointing records in the All-Ireland Football qualifiers meet in the first round of games in this year’s qualifiers on Saturday afternoon when Waterford and Offaly do battle at Fraher Field.

Both of these lost their first round games in recent weeks.

Offaly lost out to Longford 0-16 to 0-13 in the Leinster Championship while Waterford lost out to Tipperary in the Munster Championship on a 1-24 to 0-5 score line.

Down the years, when it comes to the qualifiers, Waterford have had to take to the road a lot and even had to cross the Irish Sea on one occasion, so there can be no disputing that the side will be happy when they were drawn to play at home when the draw took place on Morning Ireland recently, but may have like to got someone other than Offaly.

Offaly in the eyes of many of their supporters are travelling to Fraher Field expecting their side to win this game rather easily.

The sides have met once already this year when Waterford lost out in the league meeting between the two at O’Connor Park in Tullamore back in February, a game where Waterford had their quota of players cut on the day after Shane Ahearne was controversially sent off after he collected a second yellow card with less than twenty minutes played.

Offaly were a bit of a surprise inclusion in this side of this year’s first round draw in the qualifiers.

Pat Flanagan’s side won the Division Four final in the league back in late April at Croke Park against Longford 4-16 to 1-12 and when the same two sides met recently in the championship it was looking for a long time that the outcome was going to be the same as they were well up early in the second half but Longford finished very strong and ran out winners on a score line of 0-16 to 0-13.

Heading into their game with Tipperary Waterford expected a close battle but it was not to be. At Thurles it was one of these days that nothing went right for Waterford, as Tom McGlinchey’s charges found themselves six points down very early in the game and never recovered.

It has to be pointed out that in that game we did not see the real Waterford.

Offaly have named a strong team to take on Waterford. Right throughout the team they have players who are all outstanding footballs, including the likes of Alan Mulhall in goals, team Captain Paul McConway at full back, Niall Darby, Johnny Moloney and Joseph O’Connor in the half back line, Graham Guilfoyle in the middle of the field, Niall McNamee and Anton Sullivan in the half forward line and they have a potentially dangerous full forward line made up of Bernard Allen, Nigel Dunne and William Mulhall.

At the time of compiling this preview no Waterford team is named and suggestions are that it will not be made public until shortly before the throw-in.

What is known that Waterford will be picking from a number in the low 20’s and that players like Darren and Craig Guiry who played Junior Football for Waterford this year have been drafted into the senior set up. It remains to be seen if The Nire pair will win a place in the team from the start, but they will add some strength to the team.

Many will be writing off Waterford’s hope of winning this game following their loss to Tipperary and Offaly winning the League Final earlier this year.

Why people write Waterford off so easily when it comes to football amazes me at times.

Traditionally, Waterford are hard to beat at Fraher Field, and hopefully this will stand in Waterford’s favour this weekend.

Waterford a few years back after they suffered a heavy defeat to Kerry a few years back had their chances written off well ahead of their game against Galway in the All-Ireland qualifiers two years ago, but someone forgot to tell the Waterford players that day that few gave them a chances and with minutes to go in Salthill, Waterford lead before the home side finished strong and won the game by one point.

Waterford as pointed out do not have their team for the game with Offaly named yet, but if they can name the strongest starting fifteen as is possible which would include the likes of Shane Briggs, Thomas and Maurice O’Gorman, Liam Lawlor, Tadhg Ó hUallachain, Tommy Prendergast, Paul Whyte, Liam Ó Lonáin etc. then Waterford have a good chance of winning this game.

The fact that Waterford are written off ahead of this game should be the incentive to so the knockers when it comes to football in Waterford to be wrong again.

Waterford in the past has pulled off a win that few expected. I have no doubt that the side will again in the future and maybe the first time one of these ‘unexpected’ wins will happen is here.