The Championship Starts Here For Waterford

It’s a case of two played and two to play for the Waterford Senior Camogie Team who this coming Saturday evening will host Limerick at Walsh Park for a 5pm throw in.

While Waterford put up solid performances in their last two games against Galway in their first game and against National League champions Kilkenny at Walsh Park list time out, the statistic that matters on the league table most for Waterford and indeed for the other four sides in the same section of the competition is that Donal O’Rourke’s side are the only side without any points after three rounds of games. Waterford had a bye in round one.

Realistically few would really have expected Waterford to get something from these two games and if something was got it would be seen as a bonus. All involved with the side would have known from the moment the fixtures for this year’s competition were released that it is from here that the championship really starts.

Limerick and Clare are the other two sides that make up the group that Waterford as involved in, and for Waterford there was some great news earlier in the competition when the two sides Waterford still have to play in the competition, the game ended in a draw, meaning that both sides dropped two of the three points on offer for the winners of the game.

While Waterford sit bottom of the group at the moment with zero points from a possible six, Donal O’Rourke’s side will know that if they can get a minimum of four points in their two remaining games including a must win game this weekend that they can win a place in the knockout stages of the competition, something many of the experts writing and reporting on the game would have predicted at the start of the competition.

Saturday’s game will be the second meeting of the two sides this year in competitive outings.

The sides met in the middle of spring (did we have one in 2018) in the National League at Ballyagran and that day shared the spoils drawing 1-9 each.

Waterford went into that game with an identical point’s value as Limerick on the league table and knew that if they were to win they would win a place in the semi finals. But because the spoils were shared, it was Limerick that joined Kilkenny from the group in the last four of the competition by virtue of having a better score difference to Waterford, a cruel way for any side to miss out on a place in the knockout stages of any competition, but all sides were aware of the rules before the competition started.

In the league only two sides from both groups advance to the knockout stages of the competition but in the championship three sides from the two sides advance, with the top side going straight to the semi finals with the second and third teams playing in the quarter finals.

Once the draws were made for this year’s championship it was fairly clear from the outset that both Kilkenny and Galway would be two of the sides in the group that they were drawn in, with little separating the other three sides, even if some of the experts in the National Media were saying that both Limerick and Clare were stronger than Waterford, even if Waterford had drawn with both in the League when they did not have a full side for the whole of the competition because of Lismore’s involvement in the All-Ireland Intermediate Club Championship and after going out of the competition, some of the players took a short break from the game, to recharge the batteries so to speak ahead of the championship.

Both of these sides will be fairly familiar with one another having played against each other in different competitions in recent years.

Both sides have made a number of changes to their strongest fifteen in the last few years, losing and gaining some very good players along the line.

Nobody will need to tell the Waterford side that they will have to pay particular attention to Niamh Mulcahy in this game.

The brilliant Limerick lady is their top marksperson in the last number of years and will punish sides for any mistakes make or through ill-discipline shown within her shooting range from placed balls.

But to put all the emphasis on stopping Niamh Mulcahy could well cost Waterford as this Limerick team have players of the calibre of Caoimhe Costello, Rebecca Delee, Sarah Carey and Caoimhe Lyons all players of some renown within the Limerick set up.

Whatever, side Donal O’Rourke and his management team put out to face Limerick on Saturday evening will prove to be a very good one.

The Cappoquin Club man should be able to call upon Aoife Landers for this game after she sat out the defeat to Kilkenny because of suspension and if he can slot the An Rinn Club player and former Ladies Footballer into his starting fifteen he will strengthen the side.

He will however have to play without recently crowned Munster Long Puck Champion Brianna O’Regan for this game as she was dismissed in the loss to Kilkenny for giving away a penalty in the third quarter of that game.

However, while the De La Salle Club player who would be a loss to any side, he will have a readymade replacement in Ciara Jackman. The Gailltir Club net-minder is equally as an accomplished goalkeeper as Brianna and will come into the set up for this one.

Normally it would be hard for any side to have a change of goalkeeper for a big game, but this will not be the case for Waterford in this game as both Brianna and Ciara are sharing goalkeeping duties all year, playing every second game, showing that there is little between these two young players and the management team are unable to pick one over the other as their number one.

In defence Waterford will be just as strong and the visitors will have to be at their very best to get the better of whatever six are selected.

Waterford will be picking from the likes of Kate Lynch, Iona Heffernan, Sibeal Harney, Claire Whyte, Áine Lyng, Shauna Kiernan, Aoife Landers, Mairead Power, Marie Russell, Kate McMahon and Orla Hickey.

In the middle of the field it would be expected that Lorraine Bray and Niamh Rockett would continue to partner each other and again the visitors will have nothing soft from this pair who have been outstanding for club and county all year.

In attack Waterford have a lot of their scores coming from the stick of Beth Carton who once more is top scorer for the Déise this year, but there is more to this Waterford side when it comes to scores than the De La Salle Club players as they can pick from the likes of Annie Fitzgerald, Deirdre Fahey, Kaiesha Tobin, Fiona Morrissey, Aisling Power and of course Caithriona McGlone who always crops up with goals when the need arises more, and it will be none more so than in this game.

Should this game end in a draw just like the game between the two sides earlier this year, it would not mean that Waterford are out of the competition, but it would make it that little bit more difficult to reach the latter stages, as they would have to hope that Kilkenny beat Clare at a Kilkenny venue yet to be confirmed, and then hope that Waterford can beat Clare in the last round of games to qualify.

But Waterford will not want to rely on other scores as earlier this year they relied on Kilkenny to beat Limerick in the league, which if it happened would have meant a draw between Limerick and Waterford would mean that Waterford would advance to the knockout stages of the competition, but both Limerick and Kilkenny refused to read that script and Limerick emerged as victors on the day.

Waterford will know that they have the strongest two sides in the competition played, and while they gained no points, they did put up good showings in both games, even if they finished both with fourteen players, and that will give them confidence going into this game.

Can Waterford win here, the answer without doubt is a yes, and if they do and if Kilkenny were to beat Clare it would mean that Waterford will advance to the knockout stages of the competition with a game to spare in the round robin section of the competition.

It would be nice to see this happen and it would be equally as nice to think that with little else on this Saturday evening that the Waterford team would have a big backing in Walsh Park, surpassing the fine attendance that was present for the recent game with Limerick.