Derby to set pulses racing

FOR neighbouring counties, it’s noteworthy that Waterford and Wexford have no real tradition of meetings in major hurling games, either at under age or adult level.

That situation will change in Nowlan Park this evening when they clash in the third round of the Guinness qualifier competition, with the winners advancing to an All-Ireland quarter-final game against Tipperary, Antrim or Offaly in a week's time in Croke Park.

The last played in the League at the start of last year, when Waterford won 3-13 to 0-13 in Gorey. However, they haven't met in a meaningful game for all of 25 years ago, in the 1977-'78 League quarter-final. Interestingly, that game was played in Nowlan Park, where Wexford won by a four points margin with a team that included Rory Kinsella, who managed the team for two seasons after Liam Griffin. Full-back on the Waterford team that day was Nicky Cashin, now best known as a coach with Kilkenny minors and St. Kieran's College.

Three years earlier they met twice at the same venue in another League quarter-final when Paul Flynn's father Pat was the Waterford goalkeeper, Seamie Hannon lined out at wing-forward for them and Martin Quigley filled his usual centre-forward position with Wexford. Currently, Hannon and Quigley are involved as selectors under the management of Justin McCarthy and John Conran. From both men, the message is the same. A shared disappointment with their respective provincial final performances must be translated into positive action if they are to be in Croke Park.

Hannon feels that Waterford left their Munster title after them, commenting: "a lot of our top players never clicked in. And yet, at the end of the day, we were still only four points adrift. A couple of decisions went against us, like the line ball that (Ben) O'Connor cut over the bar and a ball that went out for a '65. Looking back, the game could have been very tight, even with us playing so poorly''.

Within the camp, the mood has been upbeat since they all came together on the Thursday night after the Munster final and held the usual postmortems. It hasn't been difficult motivating the players, he agrees.

While they initially expected to be playing last weekend, the extra week has been to their benefit in overcoming a number of injuries. Notably, team captain Tony Browne has been a major beneficiary. "Tony is fully fit this time. In the Munster final he was struggling and struggling even at half-time. He hadn't played since the drawn game with Limerick. On reflection, we were probably asking a bit much of him,'' he added.

He laughs off suggestions that Waterford got an easy draw: "If you turn that around, I think Wexford are looking at Waterford and thinking that they have a fair chance of winning. They were unhappy with their performance in the Leinster final. They felt on the day that they didn't do themselves justice either. I know that a mighty effort has been put in.

"We are fairly wary of Wexford. They're tough, hardened campaigners. Deep down they will feel they have a very good chance of beating Waterford.''

From the Wexford viewpoint, Martin Quigley suggests their team "didn't have a particularly good Leinster final", and were certainly disappointed with their last quarter display in the final.

"We will be very much focusing on that, to make sure it doesn't happen again,'' he added.

One of their priorities will be to play a type of game which is to the advantage of their small forwards. What it amounts to is an obvious imbalance, between the physical profile of the good young forwards players coming from the U-21 grade and the big men like Darragh Ryan, 'Doc' O'Connor and Declan Ruth they have in defence. "We just don't seem to be breeding big forwards,'' says Quigley. "They are quite skilful, but size-wise we would have a problem. From a team perspective, we will be keeping the ball as low as possible and not allowing what happened against Kilkenny to happen again.''

Adrian Fenlon, who showed good form at midfield the last day, has been moved to centre-forward, with the idea of adding a bit of strength to the attack. And replacing him is the colourful Larry O'Gorman. More interesting, perhaps, Dave Guiney has been re-introduced to the defence, at corner-back. "He has been training well and he has been involved with Wexford teams for a long number of years. Anybody who would know Dave would know he is a very determined character,'' adds Quigley. "We would have played a fair few challenge matches and he played in the National League game against Kilkenny in Nowlan Park. We wouldn't be concerned about him from the point of view of his match practice. We think he will be ready.''

He is expecting a close game, believing that both sides are reasonably well matched. From their perspective, there is a recognition that they'll have to limit their inside forwards, and Paul Flynn in particular.

"They got great scores against. We'll have to be very much on our toes.''

WATERFORD: S Brenner; D Prendergast, T Feeney, J Murray; B Greene, F Hartley, E Murphy; T Browne, P Queally; D Bennett, S Prendergast, K McGrath; J Mullane, D Shanahan, P Flynn.

WEXFORD: D Fitzhenry; D Guiney, D Ryan, D O'Connor; D Stamp, D Ruth, L Dunne; L O'Gorman, R McCarthy; B Lambert, A Fenlon, M Jacob; C McGrath, P Codd, R Jacob.