Big Weekend for Two Waterford Senior Inter County Teams

Saturday afternoon into early on the same evening is going to be an important few hours for two of the counties senior teams as they face important championship games that could well make or break their years, even with one game each to play after this weekend.

Ciaran Curran’s Waterford Senior Ladies Football team are up against All-Ireland Champions Dublin in what will be a very difficult All-Ireland Championship opener at Portlaoise, closer to home after that game has finished Donal O’Rourke’s Waterford Senior Camogie team take on Clare in a must win game at Walsh Park.

For the ladies footballers, this is the first of two games that they will play in the round robin part of this year’s championship. The championship sees 12 teams split into four groups with the four provincial champions kept apart in four groups of three teams. The four provincial runners up are also involved and the groups are designed so that two teams that played each other in a provincial final cannot play each other at this stage of the competition, while the third team in each group consists of four sides from Munster and Ulster which failed to reach a provincial final. In both Leinster and Connacht just two teams competed in both championships.

In Camogie 11 teams are competing in the senior championship, split into two groups, Group One consisting of five teams and six in Group Two, the group which Waterford play in. In both groups each team play each other once either at home or away, and at the end of five rounds of games the top team in both groups gets a passage to the All-Ireland Semi Finals with the second and third placed teams in the two groups crossing over to play each other in the quarter finals.

  Ciaran Curran’s side will not need any telling of the task which they face in Portlaoise, against the reigning All-Ireland Champions who recently won an eight Leinster Final in a row, beating Westmeath (4-11 to 1-7) for the fifth year in a row.

Pundits were saying going into that game that the gap between Dublin and Westmeath was closing, but even without the brilliant Sinead Ahearne who exited this game after just 11 minutes with an injury they still had enough firepower to win the game by 13 points.

Whether Dublin will be able to call on Sinead Ahearne for this game remains to be seen. If she is not fit to play a part it will come as a blow to her side, but they know from beating Westmeath recently that they have more than enough fire power within their camp.

Players like Oonagh Whyte, Niamh McEvoy, Nicole Owens, Noelle Healy, Sinead McGoldrick, Ciara Trant, Siobhan McGrath, Lauren Magee and Lyndsey Davey are al vastly experienced players that they will be able to call upon in different sectors of the field.

Waterford under Ciaran Curran this year have impressed as he has continued on the work started by another Dungarvan club man Pat Sullivan with many of the players in this Waterford panel.

Waterford this year did brilliant to beat a fancied Kerry side in the Division Two National League Final. The side from the Kingdom were relegated from Division One last year and many would have made them favourites to go straight back up at the first time of asking.

They beat the same opposition in the first round of the Munster Championship and while they lost their second game to Cork by a big margin, the side played much better in the Munster Final against the same opposition at Fraher Field, and while defeat again was Waterford’s lot, the side were well in contention at the break, but would have to face into a strong wind in the second thirty minutes.

Waterford this year have mixed some young players coming through from successful underage teams with some more experienced heads playing at this level and so far everything seems to be gelling nice for the team.

Rosie Landers has hardly put a foot wrong since she took over the number one shirt and Kelly Ann Hogan in attack is proving to be one of the finds of the year at this level.

The experience can be found in the likes of the Murray and Wall sisters, Caoimhe McGrath, Maria Delahunty, Eimear Fennell, Michelle Ryan, Róisín Tobin and team captain Karen McGrath.

 These two sides last met at the quarter final stages of the championship in 2017 at Nowlan Park and on that occasion the Sky Blues ran out 2-15 to 1-7 winners.

Expect this game to be much closer. Waterford is an improving side at this level, and we have seen that they can hold their own against most sides. When this side gets more experience playing against top sides they will not be too far off the level required to be winning All-Irelands.

In Camogie a win for Waterford over Clare at Walsh Park will give Donal O’Rourke’s side a place in the All-Ireland quarter finals for the second year in a row.

The two sides are having somewhat contrasting years in the championship up to this point. Clare have recorded just the one win, that a one point win against Clare at Navan recently, while they have lost heavily to both Cork and Tipperary.

Waterford looked as if they were going to get their championship off to a brilliant start when they lead a fancied Tipperary side by four points with the hour almost up but a serious injury to a Tipperary player meant that game was not finished on the day and when it was re-fixed at Nowlan Park recently, Tipperary ran out winners on a 4-11 to 2-14 score line, but either side of that defeat for Waterford Donal O’Rourke’s side took maximum points off both Dublin and Meath, and they will be fancying their chances to record a third win this coming weekend.

Clare began the championship this year without players the like of Chloe Morey, Marie McGrath, Aoife Keane and Orlaith Duggan, but in recent weeks they are starting to get some of their more experienced players back into the side and they look a stronger side as a result.

Both Chloe Morey and Orlaith Duggan were involved in last weeks lost to Tipperary and that game will have helped improve their fitness.

But they do not rely just upon those two players as they are strong in many areas, with the spine of their team particularly strong with the likes of Sarah Loughnane in goal. Claire Hehir at full back, Alannah Ryan at centre back, Amy Barrett and Roisin Begley in the middle of the field, Andrea O’Keeffe at centre forward and the likes of Fiona Lafferty, Mairead Scanlon and Eimear Kelly battling it out with Chloe Morey in the full forward line.

Waterford in the championship has a very settled look to the team. Last time out against Meath Donal O’Rourke and his management team left Trish Jackman out of the side possibly with this weekend’s must win game in mind while players like Beth Carton, Iona Heffernan and Annie Fitzgerald were replaced again with this game very much in mind haven won that game from an early stage.

Waterford will be fielding a strong as possible team in a bid to get the win they need and not to have to go into their final group game against Cork to secure the win they need there.

Whether Caoimhe McGrath who is rock solid all year will be involved here remains to be seen. Caoimhe is also involved with the Ladies Footballers and it is a pity that the two games are scheduled to go almost head to head which forces a player who is interested in playing both codes has to make a choice, possibly in consultation with the two managers. Surly the time has come for both Associations at National Level to come together to structure fixtures in such a way where players that want to play both codes can do so.

Brianna O’Regan is likely to start in goal, Iona Heffernan will be at full back, Trish Jackman is likely to come into the half back line, Lorraine Bray and Áine Lyng will be in the half back line or centre field, while in attack Sarah Lacey, Niamh Rockett and Beth Carton are almost certain to start, while other positions are likely to be filled by the likes of Kate Lynch, Mairead Power, Shone Curran, Fiona Morrissey, Ashling Power, Claire Whyte, Clodagh Carroll and Aoife Landers to name but a few.

Games between Waterford and Clare in recent years have proven to be close affairs and this one is expected to be no different. Waterford are good enough to win this one, but they won’t mind by what margin so long as they bring their points total from six to nine on the league table.