Waterford footballers travel to Aughrim for National League opener

Tom McGlinchey’s Waterford senior Football team will for the second year in a row begin their national league campaign with a game against Wicklow.

Twelve months ago the sides clashed at Fraher Field and the home side emerged 0-14 to 0-10 winners but playing away this year in Aughrim Waterford will know that they face a much harder task to collect the points on offer to both sides.

However that win as Waterford’s only win in the league, their next best result being a draw away to London, while Wicklow did not fair much better as their best result in last years league was a one point win over Leitrim in round two of the competition. Wicklow would draw with Carlow to finish on three points with Waterford and London who beat Wicklow on their own sod in the final round of games.

Johnny McGee’s charges have not had the best start to 2016 loosing all three games played in the O’Byrne Cup against Westmeath, NUI Maynooth and Longford.

The Garden County side have lost upwards of two dozen players that have played for the in the last two years.

Leighton Glynn who is one of Wicklow’s best ever footballers have decided to throw his lot in with the Counties hurlers of late, while in the last few weeks players like Patrick McWalter, Paddy Dalton, James Stafford and Alan Byrne who have all served the county well in recent years have retired from the inter county scene while Paul Cronin and Tommy Kelly have not made themselves available for selection.

Johnny McGee however without the players who have decided not to be  make themselves available will be able to call on some very good players, including Robert Lambert in goal, Dean Healy and Paul McLoughlin in defence, Rory Finn and Anthony McLoughlin in the middle of the field and Darren Hayden and Patrick Byrne in attack.

Waterford football made headlines in recent weeks when it was confirmed that no member of county senior football champions Stradbally are included in the panel that is currently together.

Tom McGlinchey pointed out recently that he contacted over 50 players in the last few months about their availability and that just over 30 of them had taken up the offer to go into training for this years league.

The loss of the Stradbally players to Waterford will be a big one, but the management team have named a very strong team to play against Wicklow on Sunday including some players making their debuts.

In the modern era positions mean very little when it comes to naming a team as sides are often very different to what appears on the programme by the time the game starts even if it is the same fifteen players named that start.

The Waterford management team have named the experienced Stephen Enright between the posts with Thomas O’Gorman at full back flanked by Tadhg Ó hUallachain and James McGrath.

Stephen Prendergast is named at centre back with Declan Allen and Ray Ó Ceallaigh either side of him while team captain Tommy Prendergast will be joined in the middle of the field by Conor Prunty.

Waterford have an exciting look to its forward line. Donie Breathnach who played with the senior hurlers in 2015 is named at centre forward with Maurice O’Gorman and Michael O’Halloran either side of him, while the full forward line sees JJ Hutchinson named at full forward with Gavin Crotty and Paul Whyte in the corners.

Getting out of the fourth division of the National League is Waterford’s main aim this year when it comes to football. For both sides its important that they get off to a winning start as a loss means that you are playing catch up on your main contenders from an early stage.

Last year Waterford won in Fraher Field. Can they win this year in Aughrim? If President Obama was asked, I’m sure he would reply yes they can.