Waterford to Begin with a Win

Clare despite a defeat to Cork in the opening round of this year’s new look Munster Senior Hurling Championship have name an unchanged team to play Waterford in the second round of this year’s Championship at Ennis tomorrow (Sunday).

In the build up to this weekend’s game there was plenty of speculation that there would be changes in the Clare side to play Waterford, and who knows maybe that those that feel the Clare Management team would make changes could be proven right.

Positional changes were made to the starting XV for Clare at the new look Pairc Uí Chaoimh last weekend before the game to the team which appeared in the programme and if it is the XV that will appear in the programme on Sunday that takes to the field, we can expect that changes will once more take place.

The Clare management team have once again named Donal Tuohy in goal, with Patrick O’Connor, Conor Cleary and Jack Browne in front of him. The half back line named sees David Fitzgerald, David McInerney and Séadna Morey named while in the middle of the field the management team have named Colm Galvin and former hurler of the year Tony Kelly.

In attack Cathal Malone John Conlon and David Ready are named in the half forward line while the inside forward line sees Conor McGrath, Peter Duggan and Shane O’Donnell all named.

Many in Clare had expected Jamie Shanahan who has come through from successful underage teams to start in this game having come on late in the day at Pairc Ui Chaoimh last weekend.

There is many that feel that there is some weaknesses in the Clare defence and it struggled at times last weekend against Cork. Séadna Morey and David Fitzgerald were understood to have gone into last weekend’s game carrying injuries and it will be interesting to see if they can withstand the pressures of playing a second huge championship game in a week.

The Waterford team which will take to the field on Sunday will show a number of changes to the side which lost out to Galway in last year’s All-Ireland Final.

Pauric Mahony and Austin Gleeson will both miss the game because of injury, but Derek McGrath will be able to call upon Conor Gleeson who missed last year’s All-Ireland final because of suspension is back in the side as is Tom Devine who dropped out of the panel last year after Waterford exited the National League and the inclusion of both will add plenty of strength to the side. Also missing from last year’s All-Ireland Final defeat are brothers Shane and Kieran Bennett who like Tom Devine last year dropped out of the panel earlier this year after the league.

Stephen O’Keeffe is once again named in goal with Shane Fives, Barry Coughlan and Noel Connors named in the full back line with Tadhg Bourke, Darragh Fives and Philip Mahony named in the half back line.

In the middle of the field there is an all Fourmilewater pairing as Jamie Barron is partnered by Conor Gleeson.

In attack, Kevin Moran, Tom Devine and Jake Dillon are named in the half forward line, while the inside forward lines sees Maurice Shanahan, Michael Walsh who is set to play his seventy first championship game for Waterford and Shane McNulty named.

While Waterford would be expected to start with the team named by Derek McGrath and his selectors because the Waterford management team have not played mind games and made any late changes in recent years to the team named, baring there was a late injury, we can expect plenty of positional changes in the Waterford side.

This will be the thirty first championship meeting of the two sides and in the head to head meetings between the two Clare lead fifteen wins to eleven for Waterford with four draws between the sides down the years, but in the last five championship meetings between the two sides Waterford lead three wins to two, with Waterford winning when the sides met in 2010, 2012 and 2016, with Clare winning in 2008 (Justin McCarthy’s last game in charge as Waterford manager) and again in 2013 when Clare went on to win the All-Ireland final after a replay against Cork.

This will be the second meeting of the sides this year as the two sides clashed in the last round of games in the round robin section of the National League and on that occasion Waterford came out on top winning 1-23 to 1-20 at Walsh Park with Patrick Curran who is not named for this game hitting an impressive 1-13 for the home side.

So who will win this game? Clare last week in their defeat to Cork did mange to create some goal chances, but they will not need telling that goals are hard to get against a Waterford side who plays down the last number of years with extra defenders or a sweeper system, call it what you like.

But while they might find it hard to create goal scoring changes against this Waterford side, they will know that the system used by Derek McGrath can be nullified to an extend if you shoot with accuracy from distance and be willing to take your points, something Galway did in last year’s All-Ireland Final when they raised twenty six white umpire flags over the seventy plus minutes.

There is some that are arguing that home advantage is going to be a big factor in this year’s championship, and if this is correct then Waterford are at an immediate disadvantage having to travel to Ennis, to Limerick twice and to Cork as Walsh Park was not deemed suitable to play Munster Championship games in, in its present state, something that the majority of the Waterford supporters would have realised since the new style championship came to be, even if we were told for a while that games would be played at the Keane’s Road venue.

But I don’t think that home advantage is all that it is talked up to be. A team will win any game regardless of where it is played if they are good enough to do so. But in saying this Waterford down the years in the big games have always found it difficult to play in Limerick, and may do so again this year, so it is important that Waterford come out of Ennis and Cork with wins under their belts if they are worst to win a place in the All-Ireland quarter finals.

In the Leinster Championship while Dublin might be a little behind Kilkenny, Galway and Wexford in the rankings, even though they have not won either of their two games played to date, they have put it up to Kilkenny playing at Parnell Park where they lead for much of the game and again last weekend when they played Wexford at Wexford Park.

Maybe Waterford in fact are better off playing as far away from Walsh Park as is possible.

Waterford have often played some of their best hurling on wide pitches and as anyone who has visited Walsh Park down the years it is one of the tightest pitches in the country with no real room available to widen the field. In fact the field was even made tighter in recent years when the sideline was moved further out from the stand side of the field than it used to be.

Former Waterford player John Mullane who now provides analysis for RTE Radio 1 and who is a fan with many who listens to the games covered by the station each week recently told listeners to the programme that he too don’t think Walsh Park suits this Waterford team and told how they like to play hurling in the bigger, wider open fields.

With Pauric Mahony not in the team and Patrick Curran not named in the starting XV for Waterford, Maurice Shanahan will be expected to be on free taking duties for Waterford on the day, and he will not leave the side down on the day.

Last year when the big Lismore man played a big part for Waterford was coming on for the last twenty or twenty five minutes. In the All-Ireland Final last year when he came on for Shane Bennett after he picked up an early injury he did not have the same impact as he did in other games and it remains to see how he will go from the start this time around. Maybe in last year’s final he might be gearing himself up for his big last twenty or twenty five minutes and when he was called on earlier than expected maybe the psychic was not as it would be if he got his usual roll, but I have no doubt this time around knowing he will be starting this game he will be well tuned in from the off.

After watching Cork beat Clare last weekend I was very confident that Waterford would inflict a second defeat on the Banner men this weekend.

While I am still confident that Waterford will win in Ennis, I am not as confident as I was having seen the Waterford team named.

Please don’t get me wrong, none of the XV named to start nor any of the subs that might be used on the day will let Waterford down.

I would love to have seen Waterford with six forwards on the field of play at all times in a bid to exploit the fractures there is in the Clare defence, but this is not what we have seen from the side in recent years, and looking at the Waterford side named for this weekend, we are unlikely to see it here.

Of the six forwards named for Sunday, I would regard both Kevin Moran and Stephen McNulty as defenders. Waterford’s captain is likely to drop back into the middle of the field with Conor Gleeson dropping back into the back line and maybe doing a man marking job on the Clare attacker seen as the most likely threat to Waterford, a job that the Fourmilewater man has done with success in the past and will do again in the future. I would even regard Tom Devine named in the half forward line as a player that plays better in his own half of the field and the same could be said of Michael Walsh, but these two players are very versatile players.

But if Derek and his selectors do decide to go with six forwards at any and withdraw some of their more defensive mind players then they have plenty of options open to them being able to call on players like Patrick Curran, Stephen Bennett, Thomas Ryan, Colin Dunford, Brian O’Halloran and DJ Foran to name but a few, all players who know where the goals are and more over players who know how to rattle the opposition sides net.

Clare go into this game on the back of a Championship outing last weekend, even if it resulted in a defeat to Cork and that game should stand to them here. Waterford while they have played a number of sides in the Leinster Championship in challenge games in recent weeks, they are without a competitive game since losing a relegation play off to Cork in the National League at the end March.

Waterford did have a disappointing league ending in relegation from the top flight of National League hurling for the second time since Derek McGrath took over the team.

The league might not be the be-all and end-all to most counties in recent years, something borne out by the fact that in the last four years on three occasions teams from Division 1B won the competition, and this year they might not have taken it all that series either as they might not have wanted to show their hand too early with the championship having a new look this year.

For me, I am sticking with the prediction I made earlier this week and say that Waterford will win this game. I would have loved to see and think that Waterford will go with six forwards but can’t see it happen with the team named for Waterford, but as pointed out already if Waterford do want to play with more attack minded players, the options are available from the bench to Derek McGrath and his selectors.