Waterford United 0-1 UCD

Is there a wackier club in any sport than UCD? So poverty-stricken are their supporter numbers that the usual appeals to the referee have an unusual aspect. Early in the game there was a kerfuffle in the Waterford box and the cry of ‘penalty!’ went up. From one person. On the UCD bench. Cue gales of laughter. What a hopeless bunch!

But they can play soccer, or at least they can play it to the extent that they took Waterford to the cleaners last night, the 1-0 result completely flattering the Blues. When UCD deservedly took the lead with 20 minutes to go, sweeping a clearance in to the box for David McMillan to score from close range, the silence in the ground was deafening. You almost felt sorry for the players. Then again, it does mean they don’t have to put up with this.

Having got that dose of self-pity out of the way, it falls to me to ask how the Blues got it so wrong. Talking to people around me, they agreed that the second half of our – can I say that? – win at the Belfield Bowl (?) was one of our best performances of the season. And when Kevin Waters whipped in a cross in the first minute which was frantically cleared by the UCD defence, it looked like Waterford were picking up where they left off. It is not an exaggeration to say that this was as good as it got though.

It started with an effort from forty yards that just cleared the top of Michael Devine’s crossbar. Speaking of Mick – can I say that? – Devine, he has a reputation as being one of the League’s top goalies but I must confess that on the previous occasions I’ve seen him (the notorious Ipswich game and the replay in the FAI Cup against St Pat’s way back in 1999, I think it was), he has dropped the ball right on the toe of the opposition striker. So it was perversely marvellous to see what all the fuss has been about as Devine kept the Blues from being completely stuffed. One save in particular, getting low to his right to save a strike from all of 12 yards out, was the stuff of fantasies. Apart from that there was two flying saves to shots from distance and a firm gathering of the ball under pressure when the defence really should have taken responsibility to deal with it. A flawless performance all round.

Why did he have to be so good though? Liverpool fans are well familiar with the problem of not getting ball wide. For Waterford, the opposite was the case. Everything was either a hoof for Graham Cummins – a sometime centre back it seems – to try and gather or galloping down the wings. The quality of the crosses was uniformly excellent, but it was rather predictable. Compare this with UCD who repeatedly ran at the Blues defence who repeatedly backed off allowing UCD to repeatedly shot from distance forcing Devine into those flying saves and on two occasions seeing shots fizz past the post which everyone was convinced were in. Half time couldn’t come soon enough.

Yep, this was all in the first half. The second half got off to a great start for Waterford when Greg Bolger was sent off for a two-footed tackle. It looked a wee bit harsh at first blush but the manner in which the ref whipped the red card out with venom suggested he may have seen some extra intent in the tackle and conversations later on with people better placed would confirm this.

With rain having made conditions very heavy underfoot this was a good time (not that there’s a bad time) to be a man up. Incredibly though the Blues failed to push on. Indeed there was only one short period in the middle of the half when they kept UCD on the back foot. The only clear cut chance was a fluke, a swirling corner that the UCD goalie flapped at. In the subsequent confusion it looked like the ball had gone in but it was only the goalie trashing around in the net and there were only muted appeals from the Blues. UCD always looked menacing on the break and this was even more apparent after they took the lead, one mazy dribble almost yielding a second goal and generally keeping Waterford pinned back in their own half when they should have being laying siege to UCD’s penalty area. There was one mad scramble late on when the ball somehow stayed out but there was no pattern to Waterford’s play and UCD ran out deserving winners.

So to go back to the beginning: how did the Blues get it so wrong having got it so right in Belfield? I’m tempted to say that UCD learned more from the defeat, adopting a strategy that neutralised whatever it is that Waterford got so right that day. Hopefully Stephen Henderson will have spotted the flaw and react accordingly, because this was a seriously flawed performance.

An end to all that

Comments are a rare pleasure here on Come on the Déise, so it’s usually a source of delight when one wings its way into my inbox – at least, it is once it’s clearly not spam. Today saw a new comment labelling me a ‘clueless eegit‘ over the post about Waterford United’s match with Ipswich Town and looking for my email address so he could give me what for. Fair enough, plenty to take issue with in that post. Then another comment followed soon after, clearly coming from the same source. Intrigued, I ran a search on Waterford United forums and discovered Blue ‘Til I Die where the Ipswich post was causing some angst.

The substance of the discussion is on that thread for all to see and I won’t comment on it further. However, it has made me realise that there has to come a time when I stop treating the Blues like an exercise in anthropology, to stop behaving like GAA Man come down from the mountain to study the townies in their natural habitat. Either follow them or don’t follow them. Tonight’s match against UCD is just going to be another sports event. Come on Muddy!.

Bonus time

Winning the Munster minor title may not seem like much, and no one is under any illusions that a Minor title is comparable to a Senior one (and no, I haven’t come up with a coherent use of the initial capital when it comes to words like Minor, senior or Championship. We just go with what looks right at the time). With that caveat, let’s blithely assume just that.

Before Outraged of Knocknagoshel emails, this is obviously only in hurling.

It makes for grim reading, and if you were under any illusions as to why winning the Munster Under-21 title meant so much to Clare, this should disabuse those notions. Winning the Munster minor title makes this year a successful one for Waterford hurling. Winning the All-Ireland would be a splendid bonus.

Update: not to be then for the Minors, beaten today by Galway. 2-22 is an incredible score and nothing to be ashamed of. Occasionally I do wonder whether my relentless que sera sera attitude is more damaging than it is healthy, whether it is indicative of a mindset in Waterford hurling which militates against pushing on from a position of relative comfort. Something for another day though. Hard luck to all concerned.

Waterford 3-15 (24) Kilkenny 2-23 (29)

As the dust has settled in the days following another exciting game involving the Waterford hurlers, I’ve been forced to ask myself whether I am sticking my head in the sand by being relatively pleased with how things turned out. Plenty of people on the intrawebs who are not habitually given to ridiculing Waterford were quite dismissive of our efforts, feeling that Kilkenny had plenty left in the tank and that some criminal wides and bad choices had left the Déise boys failing to fulfil their potential. Was it delusional to be so content after yet another defeat in Croke Park?

The first point to be made in what is going to be an extensive defence of Waterford’s performance is the usual fatalist one – it could have been worse. Not only was the 23-point drubbing last September hanging over the game like the sword of Damocles, there was also the small matter of the curtain raiser. As we walked along the Royal Canal we heard a roar from the ground and the chant of “May-o! May-o!” went up. Things were clearly going well for the county that I habitually use as a lesson in not getting your hopes up. We reached our seats in the Upper Hogan just in time to see Meath equalise and then watched with resignation as they rattled off five points to put the match beyond Mayo.

If expectations weren’t high before this, now they were lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut. But that’s not low enough as an adequate defence mechanism, so it was time to dwell on my wretched record in Headquarters. I hadn’t seen Waterford win there since 1998 against Galway. In the meantime we’d contrived to lose to Kilkenny, Clare, Cork, Cork again and Kilkenny again. The best I could show was a draw with Cork in 2007. Before these thoughts were so overwhelming that you’d feel like ending it all off that convenient drop a few rows ahead, the only other time I’d been in the Hogan Stand had been for that Galway game. Onwards and upwards, eh? Eh?!

Still, every game starts at 0-0 to 0-0 and if everything went Waterford’s way they’d have a chance. And I’m going to state in advance that lots of things went Waterford’s way. They got off the mark with a great score, Shane O’Sullivan curling a delightful sideline cut over the bar. Kilkenny were soon in front but Waterford then got another break, Shane Walsh having the simple task of batting the ball past PJ Ryan after a mazy dribble from Kevin Moran. The goal was a huge boost for Waterford on many levels. Quite apart from the three points – always handy – it showed that we could score goals and provided a swing in momentum towards us at an early stage. When you consider how the match last year was already slipping away from us in the first ten minutes, it was important to put manners on Kilkenny.

Speaking of putting manners on people, I had been pretty polite in the opening exchanges and would remain quite mellow throughout – with one noteworthy exception. Waterford were competing brilliantly in the breakdown and Kilkenny had even hit a wide or two before they got their first chance to really flex their considerable muscles, Henry Shefflin combining expertly with Eddie Brennan to put the latter clear and bat the ball past Clinton Hennessy. So the Cats were already in front when Eoin Murphy deliberately hauled down Brennan as he powered towards the goal. The free was a long way out and Shefflin is no Paul Flynn or DJ Carey so the logical thing to do would have been to pop the ball over the bar. It’s impossible to know exactly what was going through his head as he teed up the free, but for some reason I got it in to my head that he was fuming at Waterford’s brazenness in Murphy’s ‘professional’ foul and he decided to inflict maximum damage for the insult. Duly he went for goal and a poor effort it was too, easily saved by Hennessy. By the time Kilkenny’s follow-up had drifted wide – another improvement from last year, Kilkenny now had at least two wides – I was foaming at the mouth at such disrespect. Perhaps I’m exaggerating, but Shefflin would have a similar chance in the second half when the ball was moved in and he knocked it over the bar. If he had been taught a lesson that he shouldn’t assume that the Waterford bitches would tamely let him lash home any free he liked then this was progress.

The game was definitely on, and you wonder if John Mullane had been less fired-up whether it might have turned out differently. Twice he received clean possession only for the ball to pop out of his hand like a bar of soap, and he hit one wide that he would normally have put over had he been on his knees. The theme of Waterford not taking their chances has surfaced repeatedly over the last couple of days but I’m inclined to be more charitable. You can’t get every score and we weren’t noticeably more profligate over the 70 minutes than Kilkenny. There’s no doubt though that momentum can play an important part and misses like that followed so closely by scores for the opposition can be a killer. So it proved with Kilkenny’s second goal, a poor clearance being returned back down the field with interest and Aidan Kearney took his eye off the ball for one horrible split-second, allowing Henry Shefflin to have the freedom of the 21-metre area. It wasn’t a gimme, coming over his shoulder at pace, but like all good strikers he had anticipated the error and was able to pirouette and first-time the ball past the advancing goalie.

The temptation to throw your hat at it after a blow like that must have been immense, and it is to Waterford’s credit that they didn’t let it fester, getting the next two scores including one splendid effort from Kevin Moran. Kilkenny finished the half on the up though, leading by six points at the break. What to expect from the second half? Waterford had competed manfully and the performance was at the upper-end of expectations. And yet they were still six points down. Play any worse and the best we could hope for would be a 13-point defeat. Everyone had to go right in the second half.

Here’s the thing: plenty did go right for Waterford. The second half got off to an absolute flier as Shane Walsh eluded his marker and booted the ball to the net. My wife, chugging on a train through the north of Britain, got online on her phone long enough to see that it was 2-12 to 2-9, which clearly told her things were going well. Eoin McGrath and Kevin Moran chalked up infuriating misses, but at the other end it was arguable that Kilkenny were doing even worse with one gilt-edged goal opportunity being spurned as it came off Declan Prendergast’s arse, another effort to set up a chance dribbling embarrassingly wide, and yet another hustled out for a 65.  These were all opportunites that would have buried us but were spurned, and Kilkenny were concerned enough for Shefflin to put aside the aforementioned hubris and slot a potential goal-scoring free over the bar.

I’ve never claimed to be an expert on hurling matters, and if you want a proper match report then there are plenty of places to find one. There are times though when you wonder whether your small opinion is the most obvious thing in the world yet the people on the sideline can’t see the wood for the trees. At this stage, the Waterford team needed shaking up. All that effort, all those breaks, yet it was proving infuriatingly impossible to wear them down. The Kilkenny backs were on top and Henry Shefflin was having one of those days, shaking off markers with the typical elan that has made him such a legend and keeping their scoreboard ticking over, missed goal opportunites be damned. And yet no activity from the Waterford mentors apart from some perfunctory warming up by Dan Shanahan. Looking up at the scoreboard to see that there was only twenty minutes left, you wondered what any sub was meant to do in the remaining time. The fact that Dan couldn’t make an impact when he did come on, certainly akin to what he did against Galway, was almost incidental. The habit that all sports managers seem to have of sticking with a lineup that has worked well but not well enough is frustrating.

Especially so because Waterford seemed to be having all the luck going, or at least were capitalising on every sniff of a goal chance. Dan and JJ Delaney seemed to get to the ball at the same time and in the ensuing tug-of-war the ball went for a 65. It looked like one to me although both my siblings were doubtful. We also disagreed on what to do with the 65. They thought Eoin Kelly should take the point, I thought he should drop it in - no point in kidding ourselves that anything other than goals were going to win this for us. He must have been listening to me because the ball was lobbed in to the square. To put into context just how crazy what happened next was, can you imagine if it had happened to Waterford? All the talk of bottlers and losers and whatnot would have been overwhelming. As it was, it was PJ Ryan and co who, under no pressure whatsoever, let the ball squirm into the net.

Cue a grandstand finish as the blizzard of substitutions that should have happened earlier took place, not least one Kenneth McGrath. It wasn’t too late, especially with Eoin Kelly having one of those purple patches where everything he struck hit the target. Kilkenny though, led by Shefflin in his pomp, held it together. As the clock ticked down it was clear we were going to need two goals. One of them almost arrived right on the stroke of the end of the 70, Kelly overhead-pulling first-time on a ball that had popped up in front of him. It was a breathtaking hit, but PJ Ryan made up for his earlier gaff with a spectacular flying save. Even the point that resulted from the save was a better result for Kilkenny as we weren’t going to get two more plays in the remaining minute.

I’m not convinced that Kilkenny had a lot left in the tank had Waterford been able to muster a late charge. It would be generally accepted that Tipperary are the team best equipped to take them down, but their tactics will doubtless consist of hoping that they’re within a few points with a few minutes left then catching them on the hop. Certainly no one will be thinking in terms of running away from Kilkenny. With that in mind, Waterford definitely rattled Kilkenny’s cage on Sunday. As for our own performance, I don’t think there was much room for improvement. There were not that many bad wides, and Kilkenny will have more cause to point the finger at their own players for blunders than we would. And we had all that luck. So despite being close to 100% in terms of output and getting as many breaks as anyone can reasonably – or even unreasonably - expect, we still came up short. Yet I’m still pretty chuffed with how it panned out. It’s the first time in four cracks at the Cats that Waterford can be said to have maximised their potential. On Sunday we played a team who are probably the best there has ever been. In 1998, we lost to a score of 1-11. In 2009, we lost to a score of 2-23. We might not get that close again, and we can be certain that some  players, Tony Browne in particular, will not be there to help the cause. But Kilkenny can’t keep these standards up forever. Some day we’ll be able to match 1-11 from them with 3-15 from ourselves. I just hope I’m there to see it.

Waterford: Clinton Hennessy, Eoin Murphy, Aidan Kearney, Noel Connors, Tony Browne, Michael Walsh, Declan Prendergast, Shane O’Sullivan (0-1), Kevin Moran (0-1), Seamus Prendergast (0-1; Dan Shanahan, 0-1), Stephen Molumphy (Jamie Nagle), Shane Walsh (2-0; Maurice Shanahan), John Mullane (0-1), Eoin Kelly (1-9, 0-6f, 1-0 65), Eoin McGrath (0-1; Ken McGrath)

Kilkenny: PJ Ryan, Michael Kavanagh, JJ Delaney, Jackie Tyrrell, Tommy Walsh, Brian Hogan, John Tennyson, James Fitzpatrick (0-1; Derek Lyng), Michael Rice (0-1), Henry Shefflin (1-14, 0-7f, 0-1 65), Martin Comerford (TJ Reid), Eoin Larkin (0-2), Eddie Brennan (1-2), Richard Power (0-1), Aidan Fogarty (0-1; Richie Hogan, 0-1)

HT: Waterford 1-9 (12) Kilkenny 2-12 (18)

Referee: Barry Kelly (Westmeath)

Waterford v Kilkenny, 9 August 2009

Cards on the table II

Last time online before the Clash of the Titan and Waterford, so what are we to expect from the game? Back in 2001, Liverpool were playing what felt like a cup final most midweeks and every weekend – in some cases they really were cup finals – and a character called scousertommy on the Shankly Gates message board would post up “I fear an almighty banana skin today / tonight (nt)” before the match. This made sense before playing Bradford – now that would be an unexpected slip – but it was hardly revelatory before playing Arsenal. Either way, as Liverpool kept on racking up victories people became almost obsessed at the possibility that he might not post his message. This was surely what was keeping up the run of success.

So having personally mitigated against disaster on Munster final day, my on-the-record attitude is that I fear an almighty banana skin tomorrow. Here endeth the lesson.

Update: in the course of writing this post, I have found that rivals.net is no more, and presumably ShanklyGates.co.uk with it. The owner of Shankly Gates has gone on to bigger and better things and presumably won’t be reviving it elsewhere. Just as well I archived everything here. I’m watching you, WordPress . . .

Update II 14/11/09: it’s back. And there was me deleting all the links in each Shankly Gates post. Now I’ll have to edit them all to reflect the new URL. Good to have ya back.

Counties That I Don’t Hate – Down

(No 2 in a series of 2)

Picture it. Waterford. 1991. Since we had won our first ever title in 1929, we had managed to win something – anything – in every decade. Until the 1980’s, that is, when we had not only won nothing but had plumbed the depths of Division Three hurling and been massacred in our three Munster final appearances. We’d even had the privilege of watching the team implode live on national television in the 1989 final. Not a good time to be following the Déise.

The 80’s had been a grim time for the GAA. An All-Ireland hurling semi-final had been attended by a mere nine thousand souls (Galway – Cork in 1985) and the Ulster and Connacht football championships were utterly bankrupt – the champions of those provinces had not beaten a team from Leinster or Munster since Galway in 1973. It’s hard to sustain interest in a sport when there is so little competition among all teams in general and from your own in particular. Add in the thrill of Italia ‘90, and people were asking in all seriousness where the GAA was to go from here.

The first step in the rehabilitation of the GAA came from Meath, or specifically the sensational clash between Meath and Dublin in the 1991 Leinster championship that captured the imagination of a nation. It was so all-consuming that even my mother sat down to watch the fourth and decisive match. I had developed a loathing of the Royal County in the preceding years, fuelled by paternal links with Cork and the cast of, er, characters that populated Sean Boylan’s team. Every match you’d watch hoping they’d trip up, every time they’d sail close to the wind, and every time they’d squeeze through. They were behind for most of the semi-final against Roscommon but with a mixture of grit, nerve and (I can admit this nearly 20 years on) talent, they were ahead at the finish. Another failure from the Connacht crew. It was galling, and all the more compelling for that.

Meanwhile in the other half of the draw, Kerry had sucker-punched a previously dominant Cork to come out of Munster. No one was thinking they were world beaters – the hiding they had taken in the 1990 final and the less-than-stellar manner in which they had disposed of Limerick saw to that – but they were still Kerry, right? Yes, they were and while Down had a cute record of never having lost to Kerry in the championship, they were still from Ulster and thus were going to fill their appointed role as the Munster team’s bitch. Even leading for much of the game did not change that. Had Tyrone not done the same in 1986?

Then it happened. It may not have played out exactly as I remember it, but the sentiment is what matters. A slick Down move saw Peter Withnall put clear through on Charlie Nelligan and he smashed the ball to the net with aplomb. Suddenly Down were in a winning position and they never faltered in the remaining time, belief that they would do it coursing through every action. Watching it at home, I was gobsmacked. A minnow could put it up to one of the kingpins of Gaelic games and succeed.

Five weeks later Down were back in Croke Park against the evil Meed, and it was clear they meant business. The sea of red and black that rippled across Hill 16 was utterly inspirational, one Tricolour-wielding fool only slightly marring the beauty. Down duly shot down Meath, even withstanding one of those famous zombie-like comebacks. For the first time in my lifetime, a team who had no expectation at the start of the year to winning the All-Ireland had won the All-Ireland.

A year later another county would unexpectedly taste success.  I genuinely don’t think this is a coincidence. Could Donegal and Derry have won Sam Maguire if Down had not shown them the way? And why should such a transmission of belief stop at the Ulster border? Since then, I’ve always had a soft spot for Down. They showed the rest of the GAA world that it could be done. And more importantly, they showed me that it could be done, something has sustained me to this day.

The neverending story

Human life occurs only once, and the reason we cannot determine which of our decisions are good and which bad is that in a given situation we can only make one decision; we are not granted a second, third, or fourth life in which to compare various decisions.

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Dan really is the man. All the media outlets I could find (Hoganstand, RTÉ, the Indo and the Irish Times) led with the fact that Dan Shanahan was not going to start against Kilkenny tomorrow. At first glance, you’d wonder why they are so uniformly surprised. One-and-a-half explosive cameos against Galway does not an automatic selection make. Given the woeful nature of his recent starting performances and the current fetish for the ‘impact sub’, the shock would have been if he had been starting. One shouldn’t be too harsh on the hacks though, especially when as sober and clever a journalist as Cliona Foley is involved. They’re in the business of selling papers and / or advertising space, and Dan sells a lot more papers / attracts a lot more eyeballs than Aidan Kearney.

For it is the putative placing of Kearney at full back that is the real news. Making a radical switch in personnel or placement for a match against Kilkenny famously blew up in Waterford’s face in 2004 when Ian O’Regan was sprung for the semi-final only to ship three first-half goals from which Waterford never recovered. Last year, Davy Fitz tried to avoid that scenario in the always problematic full back position by grooming Ken McGrath for the position throughout the championship but that didn’t really work either, or at least not to the extent that he felt confident enough to try it against the Cats. Putting Kearney in there isn’t going to ruffle too many feathers. His form has made him Waterford’s third best player of the summer, behind Michael Walsh and John Mullane. Taking Walsh out of the centre back position – now that would have been really radical. Leaving Prendergast in there though would have left a high probability of total carnage. Playing Kearney represents a reasonable compromise. We have no way of knowing how it is going to go. But aprés Kundera, it’s better to do something than to do nothing.

Next time: all I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to hurling, says Bertie O’Camus

€15,000 worth of prune juice

How long before a bandwagon becomes a bandwagon can you jump on the bandwagon to avoid being labelled a bandwagon jumper? While  recently attending the RSC for the first time in literally a decade, it never entered my head that the Blues might be involved in a final there only a few weeks later. Yet victory over UCD in the League Cup semi-final and the latest gimmick from the FAI to try and get some razzmatazz going means the final against Bohemians will be in the RSC.

Tickets will probably be like hens teeth, and I’m not going to bust my hump trying to acquire them even though that fleeting appearance at the RSC probably puts me in the top 50% of entitlement. What struck me about the media coverage of the final is how the prize fund is so prominent. Even the Blues’ website, surely run by people who are not in it for the money, couldn’t resist salivating over the €15,000.

Imagine what a team like Waterford United could do with that money! I was reminded of my (ahem) obligations as a Waterford man by an appeal on WLR in May of last year. The gist of what was being said was that if Waterford folk turned out in sufficient numbers the club would have the money to buy better players which would lead to more success and better players and so on in a virtuous cycle. That €15,000, allied with the full house that will be in the RSC next month, will certainly go a long way, right?

The problem is that there is only one place such money would go, and that is on players wages. Alan Sugar referred to it as the ‘prune juice effect‘. Any success on the part of the Blues would be the ruination of someone else. It should be a salutory lesson for those who want the GAA to renumerate the players in some fashion. The logic that assumes that the GAA can just lob each of the players a few bob and nothing else will change is plain wrong. If there is any differentiation between wages, and I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting Colm Cooper should get the same amount of cash as a Kilkenny footballer, then you are leaving yourself open to the prune juice effect. There are ways around this – the franchise system they have in the United States springs to mind, or some variant on the IRFU’s central contracts – but these are revolutionary changes in the association. Better those though than the free-for-all that is soccer.

The kiss of death

With friends like this, who needs enemies?