Four places in County Senior Hurling Championship are confirmed

Four of the eight sides that will contest the quarter finals of this year’s JJ Kavanagh and Sons County Senior Hurling Championship are now known after the completion of games in round four of the league phase of the competition over the weekend.

Reigning Champions Passage moved a step closer to the last eight of the competition after they beat Fourmilewater having six points to spare at Fraher Field on Friday evening.

The champions were always in control in this game and headed to the dressing rooms at the break holding a 2-11 to 1-9 advantage.

Former inter county hurler Eoin Kelly struck the winners first goal on nine minutes when he was lurking in front of Brendan Lawlor’s goal when Killian Fitzgerald’s shot from out the field fell short.

Credit Fourmilewater however as they tried to pull that goal back, but they came up against Eddie Lynch who was in fine form for Passage who did well to keep efforts from Tommy Cooney and Shane Ryan out.

Fourmilewater did manage to raise a green flag five minutes from the break when Dermot Ryan flicked to the net. Passage however cancelled the score out two minutes later when Conor Carey having being set up by Rory Walsh finished to the net.

Fourmilewater did try to fight back in the second half with Jamie Barron landing some crucial scores, but a third goal for Passage from the hurl of Rory Walsh after some good work by Sean Hogan finished the game as a contest, with Passage running out 3-18 to 1-18 winners.

The second game on Friday evening saw De La Salle run out comfortable winners in an all city clash at Walsh Park against Roanmore.

The 2008, 2010 and 2012 champions who played without John Mullane were always in control in this game and at the break they held a 1-8 to 0-7 lead, the goal coming mid way through the half from John Keane.

Gavin O’Brien accounted for half a dozen scores for Roanmore in the first half and when he had to retire early in the second half with an injury, the Sky Blue hopes all but evaporated.

De La Salle hit six points in a row to open up a good lead towards the end of the game, and when John Keane struck for his second goal of the game five minutes from time, there was no disputing the outcome as De La Salle coasted to a 2-19 to 0-11 victory.

Ballygunner kept their winning start to this years championship in tact at Fraher Field on Sunday evening with a comprehensive 1-25 to 1-7 win over Tallow.

Inter county players Pauric Mahony and Brian O’Sullivan were on fire for Ballygunner in this game.

Mahony who has impressed throughout the year with Club, County and College hit ten points over the course of the hour while O’Sullivan hit six.

Playing against the breeze in the first half, Ballygunner held a double score advantage (10 points to five) at the break.

Tallow struck a goal through Evan Sheehan seven minutes after the restart, but it failed to ignite Tallow, who conceded a goal from Conor Power soon afterwards.

Dungarvan booked their place in the last eight of the championship when they beat Ballyduff Upper in the first of two games played at Fraher Field on Friday evening.

The Old Boro Club last contested the final in 2012 where they were beaten by De La Salle and have not won the final since the 1940’s but look as though they are heading in the right direction this year with what is a young but experienced team.

Dungarvan at the break having played with the wind at their backs in the opening half held a 0-14 to 0-4 advantage with all six starting forwards getting their names on the score sheet.

With the wind at their backs in the second half and spurred on my Mikey Kearney who hit seven points and the rock solid Cian Leamy Ballyduff played better in the second thirty minutes, but they had left themselves with too much to do.

Patrick Curran hit a goal eight minutes from time which was cancelled out with a Jamie Kearney effort after some good work by Stephen Molumphy, but it was not enough to prevent them from going under on a 1-18 to 1-11 score line.

Mount Sion also booked their place in the last eight of the championship when they easily accounted for Ardmore at Kill.

The Monastery Men proved far too strong for last years intermediate champions winning 1-26 to 2-8.

The result will have those making calls for the way the championships are run in Waterford to be seriously looked at.

Over the past number of years, only Dungarvan that has come up from winning the intermediate championship have made any real impact in the senior grade.

Roanmore have held their own, but have each year since coming up found themselves closer to a relegation battle than winning a place in the knockout stages of the competition, while An Rinn (twice) and Dunhill have found themselves relegated the year after moving up to senior.

Maybe now is the time that the numbers playing in the senior grade be cut and that a Senior ‘B’ or an Intermediate Premier Championship be set up as a stepping stone from the Intermediate and senior grades, with teams playing in such a championship coming from the two or four senior teams relegated plus the best performing intermediate teams from both divisions over the past three to five years.

Richie Roche had the ball in the Ardmore net in this game after just thirty seconds which helped his side to a 1-15 to 0-4 lead at the change of ends.

Not for the first time in recent years, Seamus Prendergast finished top scorer for Ardmore with 2-6 behind his name on the score sheet while there was also impressive performances from Austin Gleeson and Martin O’Neill for the winners.

Twelve months ago, Abbeyside went on a terrific run in the second half of the league stages of the championship to book their place in the knockout stages which they bowed out of at the semi final stages and it looks as they could be coming good at the right time again this year.

At the end of a tight first half Abbeyside held a 2-5 to 1-5 advantage.

Patrick Hurney hit the first of the games goals mid way through the first half. John Heneghan cancelled it out three minutes from time but Abbeyside from the restart went straight back up field and hit a second goal through John Hurney.

Playing with the breeze at their backs in the second half, Lismore were for times the better of the two sides.

The sides were level three times in the second thirty minutes but a second goal from John Hurney, five minutes from time proved to be crucial as Abbeyside held out for a 3-13 to 1-15 victory.

League Table Senior Hurling Championship Group 1

Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points For	Points Against	Points Diff	Points
De La Salle	4	4	0	0	84	52	32	8
Passage	4	1	2	1	82	79	3	4
Abbeyside	4	2	0	2	75	75	0	4
Lismore	4	1	1	2	70	82	-12	3
Roanmore	4	1	1	2	58	72	-14	3
Fourmilewater	4	1	0	3	63	72	-9	2

Round Five Games:

Abbeyside V Roanmore at Kill; Fourmilewater V Lismore at Fraher Field; Passage V De La Salle at Walsh Park on Saturday evening.

League Table Senior Hurling Championship Group 2

Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points For	Points Against	Points Diff	Points
Ballygunner	4	4	0	0	109	57	52	8
Mt. Sion	4	3	0	1	87	59	28	6
Dungarvan	4	3	0	1	94	69	25	6
Ballyduff Upper	4	1	0	3	63	83	-20	2
Tallow	4	1	0	3	53	85	-32	2
Ardmore	4	0	0	4	55	108	-53	0

Round Five Games:

Ballygunner V Ballyduff at Fraher Field, Mount Sion V Dungarvan at Walsh Park, Tallow V Ardmore Clashmore on Sunday evening.

Marguerita looking to lower Déise colours

Waterford as we all know will be appearing in their third successive All-Ireland Intermediate Camogie semi final this weekend.

Since winning the Junior Final in 2011, Waterford have clashed with Galway in the last two years in the latter stages of the championship, and on both occasions victory has gone to the Tribes-Ladies.

Having lost the last two semi finals, I am sure everybody would think that everyone with any Waterford blood in them would love to see Waterford return to Croke Park this year, three years after the side last appeared at GAA head quarters on All-Ireland Camogie Final Day.

This may come as a surprise to many, but there is at least one Waterford person that will not be rooting for Waterford for when they take on Limerick in Saturday’s semi Final at Dr Cullen Park in Carlow.

It may come as a shock to some as to why one Waterford person will not be willing Waterford to win, but Niall O’Donnell’s charges we to win, the I am sure that this same person will be one of the first to make their way to the Waterford players to congratulate them and to wish them well for their All-Ireland Place.

There is of course one very good reason as to why one person will be hoping that Waterford will not win.

Included in the Limerick panel that are set to face Waterford will be Marguerita McCarthy.

To most Marguerita’s name will mean nothing.

Marguerita comes from a well known family in the West Waterford Parish of Modeligo.

She has played Ladies Football for the Na Déise Club in Touraneena and Modeligo from a young age, starting off playing under 14 back in the late 90’s while still underage for a number of years to follow.

With the past few years, Marguerita has spent a lot of time in Limerick and began to play Camogie and joined the Ahane Club in 2011.

She straight away began to show the same promise as she did many years earlier when she began to play football and in recent times she began to attract the attention of the Limerick Intermediate Management team.

So far, 2014 has been a good year for Marguerita who earlier this year was part of the Limerick panel that tied with Clare and Galway for second spot in one group in Division one of the National League, loosing out on a semi final spot after the treaty side lost out to the same two counties in a series of play offs.

In the championship, playing against what some would say (I would argue differently) playing against lesser teams than Limerick had played in the league; she was once again involved with the side who recorded Kildare, Antrim, Galway and Tipperary which has set up this weekend’s semi final.

Marguerita while her she has left the county she was brought up in, she remains a huge Waterford supporter.

However, that support for Waterford will be put one side for little over an hour from 1-45pm on Saturday afternoon, as she and her team mates look to return to Croke Park for the second year in a row, and make up for last years disappointment when they lost to Galway.

But should that bid fail, and it is Waterford that emerge winners, I am sure nobody will be more delighted for Waterford than Marguerita.

Waterford Camogie Team hoping to make it third time lucky not for the first time

In the last few years, anybody with an interest in sport in Waterford cannot but fail to have noticed that Camogie in Waterford has come on in leaps and bounds.

The breakthrough happened ten years ago when after some good work in the years before it, the counties under 16 team captained by Lismore’s Laura Buckley, the county won the under 16 ‘B’ final.

Some of the players involved in that team soon began to make an even bigger impact and they soon began to break into the counties minor and junior teams.

Two Junior All-Ireland finals, one after a replay were lost before another breakthrough was made with the winning of the junior final in 2011 with members of the 2004 under 16 panel involved.

In the past two years the side has reached the semi finals of the Intermediate championship, loosing both to strong Galway sides who in 2012 lost to Derry after a replay in the final and last year beat Limerick in the final.

Sometimes when a county or club begin to taste success they feel that hard work is all done and began to let up, but not in Waterford.

The county has seen the Under 16 team win a Munster ‘B’ Final in the last two years. They lost last years All-Ireland final and with many of that panel still in place are involved in next weekend’s All-Ireland Final which they will be confident of winning. The Minor ‘B’ All-Ireland Final was won this year, Presentation College from Waterford City played in a Junior All-Ireland Final earlier this year and over the past three years, Gailltir and De La Salle have performed better than anyone could have expected at the National Féile Camogie Competition. And lets not forget what Lismore achieved earlier this year as well.  

This Saturday, Waterford are involved in a third successive All-Ireland Intermediate Camogie semi final and will be hoping to make it third time lucky, and while they face a major task in lowering the colours of Limerick, a win for Waterford on Saturday at Dr Cullen Park in Carlow will do the game of Camogie in Waterford untold good.

There can be no disputing that both Waterford and Limerick are at this stage of the competition on merit. The only disappointing thing about this game is that it is not a final, as were it a clash at Croke Park, it would be a fitting finale to this year’s championship.

Limerick will go into this weekend’s semi final as the favourites, and rightly so. But this is something that will not pose any lost sleep for Waterford, as the county often plays best when it is considered the underdog, a tag that sits well on the shoulders of most Waterford teams.

Limerick in the National League played at a higher level than Waterford in the league something that the experts will tell us is something that should benefit them.

They missed out on a place in the semi finals narrowly, loosing in a series of play offs with Galway and Clare after the three finished level on points behind Kilkenny in Group one for the second semi final spot from the group.

Limerick got off to a good start in the league recording an impressive 2-16 to 0-4 win away to Kildare and since then have backed it up with wins over Antrim, Galway and Tipperary.

In Niamh Mulcahy, Limerick has a gem of a player. In the four games her side has played to date, she has put over thirty-eight points and if given the chance this weekend against Waterford will put up a good personal tally on the score board from play as well as placed balls.

However, if Waterford manage to keep Niamh Mulcahy quite, then it could mean that others including Aoife Sheehan who has hit 5-7 for the side in the championship up to now, Caoimhe Costello, Rebecca Delee and Deborah Murphy could come to the fore.

If Limerick go into this Saturday’s semi final in a confident mood, so too will Waterford.

Playing in division two of the league, Waterford did not manage to win any game, but it should be remembered that they played the league without their Lismore players who were helping their club to All-Ireland success around the same time as the National League was in progress and some then took a very short break from the game to recharge the batteries after twelve months on the go.

In the Munster Championship back in May, Waterford took on Tipperary at the Ragg and lost the game by just two points. People will tell you that there is nothing to be taken from a moral victory, but this was a very good result for Waterford.

The championship began for Waterford with a 1-9 to 1-7 win away to Meath, a side that had caused Waterford plenty headaches in recent years, and who had beaten Waterford earlier in the year at Walsh Park.

A big win was recorded over Cork at Carriganore which was followed with a loss to Kilkenny at Callan, but Waterford guaranteed their place in the semi finals when they recorded a good win over Wexford at Fraher Field.

The Waterford team under the management of Niall O’Donnell this year shows a number of changes to the side used by Mark Cooney in the past few years.

However he still has available to him some very experienced players in the likes of Emma Hannon, Mairead Murphy, Pauline Cunningham, Nicola Morrissey, Shona Curran, Karen Kelly, Fiona Morrissey and of course Trish Jackman.

There is also some very promising young players and some new blood that Niall O’Donnell is able to call upon including the likes of Becky Kavanagh, Valerie O’Brien, Sinead Cummins, Ruth Geoghegan and Lorraine Bray.

 Both sides will go into Saturday afternoon’s game believing they can win. Limerick will believe that the experience of reaching last years final and playing in division one in the league this year will stand to them.

But Waterford too will feel they are in with a shout. A lot of the panel were around with the past two years when they reached this stage of the competition, and even before this when Waterford were involved in three Junior All-Ireland finals in a row (four if you include replays), experienced would be gained in helping Lismore win the All-Ireland Club final and also the younger members of the panel have come off excellent underage teams.

Waterford will go into the game as the underdog but have to believe they can win. Any player that is superstitious will have to believe in the power of three. The side played in three junior finals before they won one. Lismore played in three All-Ireland Club semi finals before they won one and then went on to win the final, and this is the third year in a row that Waterford are in an Intermediate semi final.