Them Damn Cats! Part II

Our betters in North Waterford are at it again, having a good ol’ chuckle at our expense after last Sunday’s win. Some wag over at KilkennyCats.com had this to say:

Waterford Celebration Guide Book

1. Beat 19 point Leinster runner up by one point and begin fist pumping
2. If spectator, shake hands with every opposition supporter around you that you have roared torrents of abuse at for last hour and a half and run onto field as though you have won the All Ireland.
3. If manager, kiss ground ala Papal visit and explain to reporters how the coup of the century came to pass.
4. If player, seek out every photographer from every newspaper from The Irish Times to the Summer Bay Gazette to ensure maximum publicity of jersey kissing and afore mentioned fist pumping. (As with supporters, this should be done with as much enthusiasm as though one has won the All Ireland).
5. If player with no children, run to crowd (extra fist pumping and jersey kissing required here) and throw said jersey to supporters ala Maradona post Boca Juniors Cup Final victory.
6. If player with children, meet at pre arranged location and repeat step 4
7. If player, speak to Sunday Game correspondant explaining how big a victory the game was (again as though one has one an All Ireland), while describing beaten opposition as a serious outfit even though your supporters spend tweleve months of the year describing Leinster hurling as Rionn B standard.
8. If you have scored, describe to reporter how you knew you had it in you and it was just a matter of time before it came out.
9. If player, assume God like status in home town for 3 weeks.
10. Proceed to annual drubbing in semi final.

One could fisk this endlessly – when, for example, have we ever taken a ‘drubbing’ in a semi-final? But, objectively speaking, it’s funny and there’s a lot of truth in it. Hopefully we’ll get the opportunity to make Walter Sobchak of Fatima Mansions regret his wit.

(Hat tip to chippercunningham over at UpTheDeise.com for bringing this to a wider audience.)

Bring Your Family To Work Day

Dan, Dan, Dan. It was obvious at the time that your claim that you felt unable to bring your daughter to the game because of the profanity being poured on your head was a rather crass use of your daughter as a shield against any form of criticism. But really, could you at least have made some concession to the idea of it being for real?

Great to have you back in the saddle.

Waterford 2-19 (25) Wexford 3-14 (24)

Pre Scriptum: it’s a new era here at Come on the Déise. We’ve taken the plunge into the world of Sky+, and pretty darn slick it is too. Up until now, I’ve always adopted the philosophy that match reports should be as contemperaneous as possible. If you want to read a proper account of the match, there are plenty of sites for that. If you want to read an account of just when a grown man felt closest to a heart attack, you’re in the right place. However, with Sky+ the more obvious clangers can be nipped in the bud right at the start. For the moment we’ll carry on in the old vein, reserving the right to switch if trying to remember who scored what point – Eoin McGrath got 0-4! – becomes too obviously hard.

One of the more worthwhile exercises I’ve ever conducted online regards the accusation that the GAA has an unwritten rule encouraging the referees to ‘play for a draw’ – yeah, it’s worthwhile in comparision to conducting long drawn out battles with WUM’s or checking out the results of the Boston Red Sox. It seems that since 1998, the year that is universally accepted to be when hurling began, Waterford have been involved in quite a few one score championship matches:

1998: Tipperary (won by three points), Kilkenny (lost by one point)
1999: Limerick (won by one)
2000: Tipperary (lost by three)
2001: Limerick (lost by three)
2002: Cork (won by one), Clare (lost by three)
2003: Limerick (won by two)
2004: Tipperary (won by one), Cork (won by one), Kilkenny (lost by three)
2005: Cork (lost by two)
2006: Tipperary (won by three), Cork (lost by one)
2007: Cork (won by three), Cork (won by three)

We’ve played fifteen championship matches where the refs have failed to engineer the draw so beloved of the GAA despite having an open goal, so to speak. In all that time, only three times (Clare in 1998, Limerick in 2004 and Cork in 2007) have they succeeded. Either they haven’t being doing a very good job, or they are playing it straight.

And yesterday we saw it again. Referee John Sexton announced with two minutes remaining that he would play one minute of injury time. It would surely have been politically sensitive to give Wexford one more chance past that additional period – one that is only ‘a minimum’ – to secure a draw / replay (more on that later). But he did not. The final whistle went with buttock-unclenching haste and Waterford were into their sixth semi-final in eleven years. Had it been the other way around we’d have been fuming, much as we have in the past.

Speaking of the past, it came as a surprise to realise in the build up that the pleasures of the Killinan Maher Terrace, as it is now known, had gone untasted for nine long years. This was a realisation that brought out a dose of reminiscing on the day when Mikey O’Connell put us to the sword, a day which my poor wife had to relive even though it happened three years before I met her, as I foamed at the mouth recounting how a player could score six points from the midfield then vanish from the annals of hurling, All-Ireland medal and all. Nostalgia sure ain’t what it used to be.

Waterford got off to a decent start, with Eoin Kelly knocking over his first two frees. Last time I noted the Jonny Wilkinson-esque routine he seems to have adopted (at least, I don’t remember him having as convoluted a routine before) and despite my sniffiness at the time it might well be having results. The first point from play was quite a laugh, a Wexford back clearing to the delight of their supporters – only to send the ball straight down the throat of Eoin McGrath who did the needful. Speaking of Wexford’s supporters, it was quite shocking how few fans they had at the match. Having been very impressed by the noise and the colour generated by the Wexford fans in defeat when I saw them in the 1999 Leinster semi-final in Croke Park, I’ve thought well of their fans. To see the paltry turnout for a match that everyone agreed they had a decent chance in shows how much the beatings they have taken at the hands of Kilkenny has reduced morale in the Model County.

Those who stayed away were to miss a stirring performance, one jumpstarted by as classy a goal as you are likely to see. Rory Jacob got in behind Eoin Murphy and sent the ball across the goal where it was gathered by Stephen Doyle. He cut inside and batted the ball past the helpless Clinton Hennessy. Simple as you like, and it makes you wonder why there aren’t more goals in hurling. I suppose it helps when trying to keep them out to have, you know, a good full back line. The match programme noted that Waterford were trying to keep three successive clean sheets for the first time ever in championship hurling. So much for that then.

Having snuffed out Waterford’s early lead, Wexford proceeded to open up a three point lead of their own. Waterford were huffing and puffing at this stage, and it wasn’t until a rather splendid gather-pivot-and-shot effort from Seamus Prendergast that Waterford got a score that could be said to be all their own work. At the other end of the field, Ken McGrath was beginning to get on top of things. He had fluffed his first attempt to gather the ball for the third match in a row, but his next effort was a message-bearing scythe across the dropping ball and his third a clean catch and clearance. In contrast to Offaly, Wexford didn’t seem to be putting Waterford under that much pressure. Certainly the ‘tactic’ of getting space before driving the ball seemed to be reaping greater dividends as the half wore on. Some nifty play got Dan Shanahan into space and he bore down on goal only to have the ball flicked from his hurley when he was in position to pull the trigger. This brought the usual bout of carping from the assembled fans, but to me it was the first positive contribution from Dan all summer. Having demanded his head during the week this was definitely one in the eye.

Slowly but surely, Waterford began to assert their authority. Stephen Molumphy was creating havoc in the middle third of the field and Mullane was in dominant form – except that the ref was insistent on penalising him for overcarrying the ball. The odds are that Mr Sexton was correct, but I find it hard to believe that Mullane was the only player at it. Still, the amount of possession we were getting was a good sign, in no small part due to a towering performance from Tony Browne at centre back. Waterford played it cool at this point, confident that with all that ball that scores would come, and as it neared half time Waterford had edged two points in front. Mullane might have made it three but for one of those overcarrying penalties, allowing Wexford to clear and tack on a score as the clock ticked towwards the end of the extra two minutes. I’d have settled for that, but Seamus Prendergast had other ideas. A mighty catch in the middle of the field while surrounded by three Wexford players was followed up with a well directed ball into the danger zone. The ref gave Waterford a free and Eoin Kelly teed it up. “Take yer point” said some fool on the terrace (ahem) but he didn’t listen, instead opting to smash the free into the roof of the Wexford net.

What a turnaround, 1-5 to 0-1 in the second quarter of the match, a period that had been as good a display of control from Waterford as we had seen all year. Mentally ruminating on events in the first half, two things seemed clear to me: 1) this lot weren’t as good as Offaly, and 2) a goal early in the second half and we’d run away with it. A team whose fans were afraid to turn up for fear of the beating they’d get were surely one sharp push away from collapsing entirely. Of course, it didn’t work out that way. After an exchange of points Rory Jacob got the ball in the corner. “Don’t foul him”, roared the Nostradamus of the terrace and the ball ended up going out for a Wexford lineball. What happened next was a bit of mystery – no Sky+, remember – as the sideline ball seemed to fly through the entire Waterford back line before bouncning apologetically into the net. The fact that the goal was credited to Willie Doran would suggest to me that the ball did travel all the way without being touched by anyone in the full forward line. Then in the next attack, Jacob and Stephen Doyle were given the freedom of the park to walk the ball into the goal.

Well that’s just champion. Perhaps there was a karmic butterfly effect at work here and Eoin Kelly shouldn’t have been so brazen in going for that goal at the end of the first half. Whatever it was, we had gone from being four points up to being four points down without much effort on Wexford’s part. Yanking off Brian Phelan in favour of Kevin Moran did not inspire confidence that the bench knew what they were doing. Credit at this point to Jamie Nagle for an excellent score from the midfield, earning a gee-up from Eoin Kelly in the process. It was certainly a moment to calm the nerves, and with John Mullane working out how to avoid being penalised for overcarrying and instead drawing soft frees from frazzled defenders, Waterford began to climb back up the self-made mountain again.

It was, ironically enough, from a less-than-authoratitive moment from Mullane, that Waterford moved to within sight of the summit. Turning to shoot after some good supply work from Eoin McGrath, he either mishit the ball or hesitated at the last moment, sending a strange looping ball into the edge of the square. Lurking with intent, only moments after some yahoo on terrace had demanded he “win the ball at least once, ya lazy feck” – in this case, I plead not guilty to having said that instead tut-tutting sotto voce at such obnoxiousness – was Dan Shanahan. He plucked the ball out of the air like an ripe apple from a tree and this close to goal there was only going to be one result.

There wasn’t exactly joy unconfined on the Killinan End, but it was definitely what the doctor ordered. From this point on it felt as if it would be who ever was ahead at the final whistle would win – that might seem obvious, but play five more minutes and you’d have a different winner, another five another winner. This might have motivated Eoin Kelly when another Mullane jig – followed by crazy war dance for the benefit of the terrace – earned Waterford a free. Straight in front of goal, not much more than 21 metres out and only two extra bodies in the Wexford goal, a shot at goal seemed a no-brainer. Yet Kelly popped it over the bar.

Keeping the scoreboard ticking over had to be the reason. It wasn’t long before this didn’t look so reasonable. Stephen Doyle cut in from the right again and in the ensuing scramble Wexford got a penalty. Up trotted Damien Fitzhenry and mentally you were already adding three points to Wexford’s score. This meant it felt like quite a release when his shot raced into the nets behind the goal. While Eoin Kelly’s effort was deliberate, this must have been a mishit. Why send your legendary goalscoring goalie up for a penalty to do what every hurler in the country could do on their weak side?

So were hanging in there, sometimes level, sometimes in the lead, but crucially never behind – had Fitzhenry’s penalty yielded a goal it probably would have been very different. Wexford seemed to be on top in their back division, with David O’Connor mopping up everything that came his way. Why Waterford only used one sub on a day when the sun was beating down like a hammer is something the mentors need to think about before the next game. At this point we began speculating on the possibilty of the dreaded extra time. I was convinced that extra time would be necessary, but page 3 of the match programme seemed to blatantly differentiate between the certainty of extra time in the minor and the lack of said certainty in the senior matches. So a bumper pay day was in the offing for the GAA, if John Sexton played his cards right.

And perhaps Wexford were expecting that, because when the announcement went up that there were effectively only three minutes left, Diarmuid Lyng was standing over a free awarded after Kevin Moran had effectively committed a professional foul to sniff out the possibility of a goal. Three minutes left, two points in it: plenty of time left if Wexford didn’t dally, yet Lyng took a lot of time to take the free. Molumphy had the chance to leave Wexford needing a goal as the time ticked inexorably on but his shot went wide. The clock moved into the 72nd minute and Fitzhenry still showed little in the way of urgency. This tardiness meant that it was almost anti-climactic when the ref blew the final whistle. Where was the last minute scramble, the ball hitting the bar, the back emerging triumphantly with the sliothar in his fist – or the forward wheeling away in triumph having smashed home the goal to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Not that I’m complaining, though Wexford might legitimately gripe about the ref having no soul.

And thus it has come to pass. The leprechaun has given us his crock of gold, or at least a portion of it. It’s obligatory to say at this stage that there doesn’t look like there’s an All-Ireland in this Waterford team, and I’m loath to omit that which is obligatory. Still, after the rout against Clare it would have not seemed possible that Waterford would be the only team left out of the non-Big Three counties at the semi-final stage. It’s not progress but at least we’re not going backwards and anything is better than going back.

Waterford: Clinton Hennessy, Eoin Murphy, Ken McGrath, Declan Prendergast, Shane O’Sullivan (Jack Kennedy), Tony Browne, Brian Phelan (Kevin Moran), Michael Walsh (capt), Jamie Nagle (0-1), Dan Shanahan (1-1), Seamus Prendergast (0-1), Stephen Molumphy (0-1), Eoin McGrath (0-4), Eoin Kelly (1-8, 1-6f, 1 65), John Mullane (0-3)

Wexford: Damien Fitzhenry (0-1 pen), Malachy Travers, Paul Roche, Brendan O’Leary, Mick Jacob, David O’Connor, Colm Farrell (Darren Stamp), Eoin Quigley (0-1), David Redmond (0-2), PJ Nolan (Stephen Nolan, 0-1; Keith Rossiter), Willie Doran (1-1), Diarmuid Lyng (0-5f), Stephen Doyle (2-1), Stephen Banville (Barry Lambert), Rory Jacob (capt; 0-3, 1f)

HT: Waterford 1-10 (13) Wexford 1-6 (9)

Referee: John Sexton (Cork)

Waterford v Wexford, 27 July 2008

And it’s off to Jones’s Road we go (Part I?)

It was preordained that Waterford would beat Wexford. How so? Because when Waterford clash with Tipperary in the All-Ireland semi-final on August 17, I’ll be in a field in the middle of Devon, no doubt trying desperately to get a connection on my mobile phone. It could have been worse – we might not have been there.

One of my favourite things

The desire to pretend that your team is not the favourites is one of the oldest in sport, and everyone associated with Wexford and Waterford was falling over themselves to try and divest themselves of the intolerable pressure of people thinking you might be about to win, with John Meyler even claiming that Thurles is an advantage for Waterford. Who would possibly want the suffocating burden of being favourites?

I do, for one. The reason that a team is the favourites is invariably because they are better than the underdogs. You can occasionally dip into the well of underdoggedness and use it to get a result but it is at best a short term solution. Richie Bennis made much of how everyone dismissed Limerick’s chances before their clash with Waterford in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final and how much it fired them up. All well and good, but being inferior to the opposition caught up with them in the final when they were much greater underdogs – surely that should have served to inspire them even more? – and continued on into 2008, to the point where Limerick people are behaving as if last year never happened.

This doesn’t mean we are certs to win today. The sample of matches in which the two teams have played is too small to be able to say with certainty that Waterford are better this year. But the evidence of recent times suggests Waterford have the better hurlers. And should Wexford punish such cockiness like they did five years ago, it’ll be a blessed release from the carnage that would have been inflicted on us had we somehow been able to skip Wexford and meet Tipperary or Kilkenny instead.

Take a ticket and wait for your number to be called

Move it or lose it, he said. How right he was. Having seen tickets for Sunday’s double header go on sale on Monday, I blithely checked out the prices and thought “pah, I’m not paying €3.50 extortion charge per ticket, I’ll get them at Walsh Park during the week”. The smug petard I had hoisted myself upon began to wobble mere hours later when reports emerged that stand tickets were sold out and that the allocation to clubs had been ‘pitiful’. By Tuesday evening the only additional information online – buried between the escalating howls of outrage (see link above) - was that they’d go on sale in Walsh Park “tomorrow afternoon (cant remember the time, sorry, but its around lunchtime I think)“. Jeez, thanks for that. This morning I admitted defeat and crawled back to Ticketmaster to pick up four tickets for the Killinan End.

What is the moral of this story? Quite apart from the sage wisdom at the start of the story, you have to wonder about the GAA’s priorities in this matter. If the seats on Ticketmaster are as decent as some are saying on AFR, then that can’t be right. Equally odd is that the terrace tickets have gone to the counties yet are still on sale online, suggesting that they could run out fairly fast for those who are used to queueing along Keanes Road or at Fraher Field. Perhaps this is all a ball of smoke, that there are enough tickets to satisfy the two most important constituencies – the clubs and the County Board – and still have some left over for the online brigade. But you wouldn’t put it past the GAA to be trying to nudge people towards the lucrative online distribution network.

And it’s off to Tom Semple’s field we go Part II

With Croke Park’s pitch out of commission, perhaps caused by the amount of times Wexford’s footballers were forced to eat it by Dublin yesterday, it’s back to Thurles for another double header for next Sunday. Ignore any talk that this will suit one team or another, none of the four teams will be bothered by the venue. While it’s good from the point of view of access, what is not so good will be getting tickets. There’s no way anyone with any sense will be turning up on the day. Cork will almost certainly hoover up any spare tickets so it could be a case of move it or lose it.

First broadside in the war with Wexford

“A county full of village idiots!”

Waterford 2-18 (24) Offaly 0-18 (18)

What do you take from a win that is the work of one man? On the one hand, it can’t be sustained. If you were told after the Galway – Cork match that the Tribesmen were carried by Joe Canning, you would not be surprised to learn that they lost. On the other hand, what’s wrong with one player dominating on a day when other tried-and-tested players don’t fire on all cylinders? Past performance is no guarantee of future results, an axiom that can cut both ways. Perhaps one of the giants who slept through the Offaly game will arise against Wexford and take the burden from the shoulders of the one who carried it against the Faithful. You can only hope.

Speaking of hope, those who hold out hope for the future of hurling – a bare handful of people if the volume of conversation on the web is to be believed – will be puffing their chests out after this stellar day in Thurles. For the preposterously low sum of €25, the thirty thousand-odd people who were present were treated to over two hours of top notch entertainment. Chief among the hopeful brigade is Wellboy over at UpTheDeise.com, who was to be found (I think; perhaps it was one of his acolytes) on the bridge near the railway station handing out his branded balloons. I’m not certain what these items are called, and Googling hasn’t yielded any results, but I recall the cacophonous din created by the fans of the Anaheim Angels during Game 6 of the 2002 World Series. 45,000 people hammering them together was quite a sight, and while it’s easier to get everyone doing it when a) the crowd are all rooting for one team, and b) the sport in question, i.e. baseball, is a series of setpieces rather than the nonstop tumult that is hurling. Still, 10/10 as an exercise in marketing, and I might frequent UpTheDeise.com a bit more, especially now that he seems to have purged the trolls.

We took up our seats good and early, with two Laois women, a Kerry man and an English woman in tow, all cheering for the Déise boys – now how’s that as an exercise in marketing? We certainly got there earlier than the hordes that suddenly erupted out of the New Stand onto the pitch a few minutes before the match was due to start. It didn’t look like the stand was full, but you can’t blame the stewards for deciding that it was better to give those willing to trash the GAA some more ammo by permitting people to switch stands in such an undignified manner than have people crib about being expected to sit in the wings of the stand. It was two parts amusement one part buttock clenching embarrassment as the stream continued into the (superior) Old Stand, despite the protestations of the announcer. Once again, the GAA can’t win with its public. People complain about having to buy tickets at a booth when it would be easier to pay at the gate. Yet things like this are bound to happen when it’s pay at the gate. Should the authorities close the stand you’d have people wailing that they would have to run around to the other side to gain admittance and they should delay the throw-in, which would lead other people to say to hell with them, start the game on time and come earlier next time, but the Gardaí would inevitably delay the throw-in due to the danger of a crush which means no one need be worried about the game not being delayed meaning they turn up late next time and the next time . . . nope, there’s no solution short of some kind of hive mind implant to change everyone’s behaviour.

(One final thought before we get away from this padding and into the match. Once again, the toilet facilities were superb in the Old Stand. Whoever decided that the patrons of Semple Stadium deserved treatment that wouldn’t be out of place in the Hilton after years of treating them like cattle should be beatified.)

The last couple of weeks have been rather helter skelter, what with the English woman up to her tonsils in exam papers and the dislocation of switching jobs, so the details of Waterford’s team passed me by. It wasn’t until Waterford had their first free that I twigged that my great crusade for 2008 had come up short. Dave Bennett was back in his pre-destined position of bench warmer, punished for the crime of not being flawless with the frees against Antrim. I probably should give up banging this drum, but the sight of Bennett coming on with about thirty seconds to go was enough to make yer blood boil. The manner in which he takes these slights is only further evidence of the even temperment of a man who should be picked way ahead of some of the fat arses currently stinking up the side. Sort it out, Davy Fitz.

So that’s one of those things that haven’t changed under the nouveau régime. Another thing that hasn’t changed is Waterford’s capacity to hit the ground running, as John Mullane rattled over the first point within seconds then worked his way into space before playing a pass to Eoin Kelly that went too close to Brian Mullins in the Offaly goal. Way down in our perch near the Town End of the stand it was impossible to tell just how big a clanger he dropped – did it bounce awkwardly or did he simply take his eye off the ball? – but it somehow squirmed past him and Eoin Kelly, like a good striker assuming the best, was there to bat the ball into the gaping net. Further quick fire points followed and Waterford were 1-4 up before we’d even drawn breath.

Other things that never change are the free taking calamities, as Eoin Kelly missed a routine strike only for Offaly to come straight down the pitch and score. We joked that this was a ‘turning point’ then watched in growing horror as Offaly reeled us in like a mackerel. The early spurt was always going to be skewed by the soft goal which made this period all the worse. Eight points flew over without reply. The Antrim game had made me wonder whether the Davy Fitzgerald model had a game plan, something you could never accuse Justin McCarthy of having. The only plan there seemed to be here was an infuriating desire to do what I can only describe as micromanaging the ball, constantly twisiting to try and create more space rather than simply letting fly with the ball out of defence at the first available opportunity. Even the first available half- opportunity would have been better than these ham-fisted handpasses and hospital balls. Panic seemed to be spreading through the team to the point that every foray forward had to end in a goal. In fairness they were decent goal scoring chances, with Hurney racing (in so far as he can ever ‘race’) through only to be well blocked, Mullane slicing a chance wide and Kelly being fouled then having the free saved and cleared. But had we been several points ahead rather than watching a lead evaporate you can be certain these would have gone over the bar.

Thank God for defensive cockups then as Offaly’s full back line contrived once again to gift Waterford a goal. Another charge towards goal seemed to have ended when the ball was intercepted by Michael Verney but he fumbled the ball like a bar of soap and Kelly was there to lash the ball past Mullins. What an utter sickener for Offaly, seeing all their good work undone in one careless moment, and Verney was quickly called ashore. Points were exchanged until half time leaving Waterford a point ahead at the break.

Much has been said online about the performance of the referee Michael Haverty. He didn’t have a great game, that’s for sure. It struck me that he was prone to give the decisions according to the way the momentum was going. Whichever side was on top was given the benefit of the doubt, which led to some truly wacky decisions. Players were punished for what might be termed loose strikes but were neither dangerous nor anything they could have anticipated. I’m all for supposedly over-fussy refs – apply the rulebook, that’s all I ask; this notion that refs should ‘let the game flow’ is a recipe for brutality, something that would be evident in the following game between Galway and Cork. But Haverty got lots of decisions wrong, the only consolation being he seemed to dish out the errors evenly. And the abiding memory of the ref from this game was the astonishing distance he got on the sliothar as he threw them from the 65 metre line to the edge of the square just before the start of the second half. Clearly no one is going to argue with his decisions.

The second half started with Offaly flying out of the traps, knocking over two quick points before the game settled into a series of tit-for-tat points, with Eoin Kelly contriving to miss another doozy of a free in this period. It is about time that I referred to him directly, as anyone who was at the game will be wondering what game I was watching to be so dismissive of his performance. For starters, his goals were soft affairs gifted up to him by dreadful Offaly errors. And his free taking was as erratic as always. He seems to have adopted a Jonny Wilkinson-style routine for his frees but while he hit some decent ones in the second half he did miss a few easier ones that we need to be getting if we are to advance further. Up to the fifty minute or so mark, there was little to suggest he was about to go supernova. But go supernova he did, with a display of crazy point scoring that was as good as any hurler ever produced. Gathering a puckout around the 65 metre line, he turned and smacked it over the bar on his left side. Then he pointed from way out wide on the right, over his shoulder no less. Then came another crazy heft from out the field under pressure. Long range frees now flew over the bar with minimum effort. Stirring stuff, and it was observed to me after the game that you could see Offaly crumble around this time. They persevered but when it became clear that goals were what was needed it became equally clear that none were going to be forthcoming. Whether this was because of the presence of Ken McGrath is debatable. We definitely missed his moxy in the half back line, and he didn’t seem to do a whole lot of import at full back. But the scoreboard tells us Offaly didn’t score a goal and Clinton Hennessy didn’t have to make a single save throughout the game. Some might say Offaly didn’t threaten, but Joe Bergin has given us palpitations in the past so it’s not unreasonable to suggest we were doing something right.

Kelly’s stellar performance, rounded off with two more long range frees, carried the team across the finish line. The ying of his 2-13 can be set against the yang of 0-5 for the rest of the team. John Mullane endlessly caused trouble for the Offaly backs and drew a few frees, but the rest of the forwards could have been replaced with dustbins with little harm done, and Big Dan was a fair bit worse than any trash receptacle might have been. The selectors have got to bite the bullet with Dan. Tracing the comments I’ve made through each game this year can show how mediocre he has been. The point where you say “give him another chance” was passed a few games back. Other players may have underperformed yesterday but they’ve either not had enough games to be sternly judged (Hurney and Prendergast) or can point to good outings already this year in their defence (Mullane and Eoin McGrath). The ongoing experiment with Ken McGrath in the back line will surely be persisted with even if the evidence for its effectiveness is mixed. We’ve come a long way since that Clare game, and (let’s be honest) we’ve gotten the easier half of the draw in the quarter-finals – just like Offaly in this round Wexford will view it the same way so no need to paste this to the dressing room wall, Mr Meyler. Kilkenny and Tipperary won’t be quaking in their boots but even getting a crack at either of them would represent progress of a sort.

Waterford: Clinton Hennessy; Eoin Murphy, Ken McGrath, Declan Prendergast, Shane O’Sullivan, Tony Browne, Jack Kennedy (Brain Phelan), Michael Walsh (capt), Jamie Nagle (Paul Flynn), Dan Shanahan, Gary Hurney (Stephen Molumphey, 0-1), Seamus Prendergast (0-1), E McGrath (0-1; Dave Bennett), Eoin Kelly (2-13), J Mullane (0-2)

Offaly: Brian Mullins, David Franks (0-1), David Kenny, Michael Verney (Conor Hernon; James Rigney), Kevin Brady, Ger Oakley, Paul Cleary (0-1), Brendan Murphy (0-2), Rory Hanniffy (0-2), Shane Dooley (0-1), Joe Brady, Derek Molloy (0-1), Brian Carroll (0-9), Joe Bergin (0-1), Daniel Currams (Conor Mahon)

HT: Waterford 2-6 (12) Offaly 0-11 (11)

Referee: Michael Haverty (Galway)

Post Scriptum: the second game was a thirlling, tension soaked, bonus. Hopefully I’ll get to write about it through the week.