Waterford To Begin With A Win

This year’s National Hurling League for Waterford begins on Sunday afternoon next where Derek McGrath’s side will have home advantage over Davy Fitzgerald’s Wexford at Walsh Park.

While most people will be a happy for a Waterford win in this game, there will be a sizable amount of supporters that will be hoping that Waterford will play a much better brand of hurling than they saw when the two sides last met in the All-Ireland Quarter Finals last summer at the new Pairc Ui Chaoimh in Cork, where Waterford won out in an almost instantly forgettable game of hurling, where both sides played a very defensive game.

Waterford bowed out of the competition last year at the quarter final stage of the competition when they lost out to Galway at Salthill, and many especially those tasked with responsibility of funding the bills for training the team will be hoping that Waterford will go further this year as last year’s balance sheet at convention showed that Waterford take from league gate receipts was down about €100,000 on the year before when Waterford reached the final only to lose out to Clare after a replay.

Wexford will head into this weekend’s game on somewhat of a high after they beat Kilkenny in the Walsh Cup Final on a free taking competition after the two sides had ended the day locked together on the score board.

Davy Fitzgerald is likely to bring a strong panel of players with him to the Keane’s Road venue on Sunday afternoon, but it remains to be seen as of now what starting XV he and his selectors will send out.

If they were to put out a full strength side, or as near to full strength side as possible then it will mean that we will see the likes of Mark Fanning, Liam Ryan, Matthew O’Hanlon, Diarmuid O’Keeffe, Lee Chin, Shaun Murphy, Cathal Dunbar, Conor McDonald, Rory O’Connor, Jack Guiney, Paul Morris, Harry Kehoe and Jack O’Connor all likely to feature in the purple and gold shirts.

Waterford we know is unlikely to field a full strength side for this game. It remains to be seen what players who featured in the Fitzgibbon Cup this week will feature. Also set to miss the game are regular net minder Stephen O’Keeffe who as a reported hamstring injury while Tom Devine who is back in the panel this year after taking time out last year is also reported to have picked up a similar injury playing in the Fitzgibbon Cup last week, while its also reported that regular corner back Noel Connors is suffering with Flu of late. Maurice Shanahan also came off in a recent challenge game having picked up a knock and it remains to be seen what part he will play this weekend. What part Michael Walsh will play also remains to be seen. It’s said he only recently returned to training a little after the rest of the panel, and it’s also worth remembering that in recent years the older members of the panel have not always featured strongly in the league as they are held back for the championship.

Waterford played recent challenge games against the likes of Dublin, Offaly and Limerick as well as Munster Senior Club champions Na Piarsaigh where the majority of the panel would have got ample time to try and win a place in the starting team for this weekend’s game.

Ian O’Regan could well start off between the posts while the likes of Shane and Darragh Fives, Barry Coughlan, Tadhg de Búrca, Stephen Daniels, Philip Mahony, Kieran Bennett, Shane McNulty, Conor Prunty and maybe Austin Gleeson could fill the defensive positions against Davy Fitzgerald’s charges.

Jamie Barron and Kevin Moran would be expected to fill the centre field positions, while in attack the positions could well be filled from the likes of Stephen Roche, Jake Dillon, Pauric Mahony, Stephen Bennett, Thomas Ryan, Maurice Shanahan (if fit), Brian O’Halloran, Jack Prendergast, Colin Dunford, Patrick Curran, Mikey Kearney and DJ Foran.

The league might not be a top priority for many this year with extra games to be played for all sides in the championship this year.

This year’s league is going to be interesting to see how it pans out. It is envisaged that the league and indeed the championship this year will become more of a panel game than we saw in recent years. And with games coming earlier in the year and more quicker than usual, injuries could well prove a part for all sides as it remains to be seen what strength of player will come in for those maybe forced to miss a game or even games.

Should Waterford fail to field a full strength side in their games in the league and maybe as a result find themselves relegated, it might not be the end of the world should they have to play in Division 1B next year as they know that the last three winners of the league (Waterford, Clare and Galway) have all played in Division 1B and while Galway won the League last year they failed to win promotion to division 1A, that place went to Wexford, we could see this year’s winners again come from that same division and if Waterford were to be relegated then who is not to say that Waterford could emerge as league winners in 2019 as a Division 1B team.

Last year Wexford made a lot of progress under the guidance of former Waterford and Clare manager Davy Fitzgerald. The former Clare net minder seems to do well in the first year in jobs he take on as players buy into what is after called the Davy Factor, but after a year or two things begin to drop off.

They won the Walsh Cup last weekend beating Kilkenny in the final. That win will give his side renewed hope going into the league but Brian Cody is unlikely to have lost out on any sleep after the way his side lost out and neither will his players.

It could well be argued that while Wexford will go into this game in a confident mood as a unit they could well be somewhat behind where Waterford are at right now, and Derek McGrath’s side should have enough in them to open the league with a win.