Improving Waterford Take on All-Ireland Champions at WIT Arena

The fourth round of games in this year’s National Camogie League take place this coming weekend and for Waterford they will welcome All-Ireland Champions Kilkenny to the WIT Arena at Carriganore.

This is the third game this year that the home side have had at the Carriganore venue, having played Wexford and Cork at the venue already in recent weeks, both resulting in defeats for the home side.

The All-Ireland Champions will make the short journey down the M9 Motorway on Sunday with the tag of favourites wrapped firmly around their necks, despite an eight point defeat to Wexford last weekend at Gorey.

That defeat was the first time that the All-Ireland Champions had been defeated in ten months and will be going out all guns blazing this weekend to try and get back to winning ways.

Kilkenny in that game looked early on if they would extend their winning run as Miriam Walsh attempted her luck for a goal but her shot was deflected out for a 45 which was converted by Michelle Quilty after just a minute.

Wexford hit back two minutes later with a goal kicked to the net my Nicole Fortune, but Kilkenny responded with a brace of points each from Miriam Walsh and Michelle Quilty to lead with the game just after entering its second quarter.

Linda Bolger steadied the ship with a brace of points in the space of a minute to level the game but Kilkenny took the lead once more when Miriam Walsh got her sixth point of the game.

In the twenty third minute Brid Gordon struck a second Wexford goal and while Anne Dalton pulled a point back, a Linda Bolger point gave Wexford a 2-4 to 0-7 lead at the break.

Linda Bolger (x3) and Shelly Kehoe extended the Wexford lead at the start of the second half. Michelle Quilty followed up with a brace of points for Wexford with the game now in its final quarter, but the home side finished that game the stronger of the two sides as Shelly Kehoe and Linda Bolger with a brace hit scores to help Wexford to a worthy win.

Kilkenny are not All-Ireland Champions for no reason and will look to the players already mentioned above plus others like Kelly Anne Doyle, Denis Gaule, Emma Kavanagh and Claire Phelan for much of their guidance in this game.

Waterford are still on a learning curve after winning the Division Two League title and Intermediate All-Ireland Final in 2015, but are most defiantly moving in the right direction.

Last weekend while in the end the side lost heavily to Cork in the end, I think it’s fair to say that we saw that the speed needed by the players to play at this level is coming right.

The squad is a nice mixture of youth and experience, and in some cases both apply to the same players.

There is a lot of changes to the team which won the double in 2015, but maybe the team now is stronger than it was them.

Beth Carton is a player that everybody knows about now. She is a player of unquestionable skill and will cause any side she plays against problems.

In attack she is not alone. Catriona McGlone is a player we know is a player that can do it on the big stage, while in the last few games we have seen Niamh Rockett make a very big impact.

In the middle of the field Aoife Landers and Shona Kiernan look a strong outfit, while Brianna O’Regan looks to have nailed down the goal keeping position as her own. Yes, three goals went past her last weekend, but there is nothing she could have done about any of them and for the first she had made a very good save but was beaten on the follow up.

In defence, Waterford look strong able to call on the likes of Áine and Mairead Power, Claire Whyte, Emma Hannon-Roche, Fiona Morrissey and Marie Russell.

This game has the ingredients of being an entertaining encounter. Kilkenny will go in the game as favourites, but this is a Waterford side that learning and improving all the time, and they could well test Kilkenny in this game. Should Waterford put in another good hours work and maybe even get something from this game, it would set the team up nicely for their final league game against Tipperary.