Déise Ladies To Take On Dub’s At Walsh Park.

The curtain comes down on this year’s All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship for Waterford on Saturday afternoon when they take on Dublin at Walsh Park.

With Dublin having beaten Clare in the first round of games and Waterford not having won any of their three games to date, Ray O’Brien’s charges will be hoping that they avoid the wooden spoon by collecting all three points on offer in this game and then hope that near neighbours Kilkenny can do the Déise County a favour the following week and beat Dublin.

Waterford however will be confident that they can get a win in this game and end the year on somewhat a bit of a high as they have already beaten this weekend’s opponents this year when the two side met in the league back in February.

Waterford under Ray O’Brien have very much a settled look to their team this year, even if they are short a number of players which were part and parcel of the set up in the last number of years.

When the sides met in the league, Waterford ran out 0-11 to 0-7 winners with Beth Carton the star player for the Déise County on the day striking all but two of her sides scores on the day.

On that day Ali Maguire opened the scoring for Dublin but Beth Carton put over four points in a row, three from frees in a ten minute spell.

Ali Maguire with two frees followed with efforts from Miriam Twomey and Siobhan Keogh followed up to put the Dub’s back in front, but another Beth Carton free soon followed to level matters at five points each at the break.

Ali Maguire like she had done at the start of the first half got the first score of the second half putting over another free giving Dublin the lead.

Fiona Morrissey put over a long range free with the aid of the strong wind at her back before Kate McMahon put the Déise noses back in front, but Maguire would soon level matters once more.

This however would prove to be the home sides last score of the game as Waterford send over the last four scores of the game, all off the stick of Beth Carton all from placed balls.

For this weekend’s game however both sides are likely to show a number of changes in personnel from that game for this weekend’s clash.

Dublin for their part will once again expect Ali Maguire to be their main player in attack and she is likely to be well watched by the Waterford full back line, who will know that if they can curb her influence then Waterford will stand an excellent chance of winning here.

Others that they will be looking to in this game could well be Miriam Twomey, Emma Flanagan, Aisling Maher, Siobhan Kehoe, Eve O’Brien, Hannah Hegarty, Eva Marie Elliott, Áine Woods and Grainne Quinn.

Waterford in their last three games have just used twenty players which includes subs that were used on the day.

The Waterford management team are likely to stick with the tried and tested players for this weekend in what is a must win game, even if Waterford’s chances of reaching the knockout stages of the competition have long gone.

That will mean that Brianna O’Regan will continue in goal with Marie Russell, Fiona Morrissey, Claire Whyte, Mairead Power, Shauna Kiernan, Iona Heffernan, Aoife Landers, and Jenny McCarthy all vying for the six defensive positions with one of them plus maybe Áine Lyng in the middle of the field.

In attack it’s expected that Kate McMahon, Caithriona McGlone, Beth Carton, Niamh Rockett, Lorraine Bray and Becky Kavanagh could well be the sextet of players chosen, while the likes of Niamh Ahearne, Valerie O’Brien and Annie Glavey could also be in with a shout for a start.

Meanwhile elsewhere this coming weekend in Camogie the Waterford Junior team are away to Westmeath on Saturday afternoon. They play in a curtain raiser to the All-Ireland Football qualifier between Westmeath and Armagh at Cusack Park in Mullingar. This begs the question which often is asked in Waterford and for which an unsatisfactory answer is available, why can’t G.A.A. Supports in Waterford get to see double headers involving our Camogie teams and Ladies Football teams with our Senior Hurling and Football teams or even why we can’t see our Senior Footballers playing at the same venue on the same day as our senior hurlers.

Meanwhile on Sunday Waterford and Clare do battle in the All-Ireland Under 16 championship in Walsh Park at 1pm.