Kilkenny still team to beat

THE relief in the Wexford dressingroom was palpable.

They had just got out of jail in a cracker of a Leinster senior hurling championship semi-final, emerging victors by one point in a game they seemed destined to lose for most of the seventy minutes.

Even accepting that they mounted a tremendous second half comeback, wiping out an intimidating seven point interval deficit in the process, team manager John Conran was utterly frank and honest in his assessment of the game.

“We knew we would be up against it and there is no doubt that we got the rub of the green”, the Rathnure man said.

“But then again many times in the past we have been on the other side of the green fence, so it wasn’t out of turn today for us to get the vital breaks.”

Conran said their first half display had been very poor with Offaly running them ragged all over the park. However when push ultimately came to shove they showed great character on the turnover as they set about eating into that sizeable Offaly lead.

He said they had trained very hard for the game, and once things eventually got going for them everyone responded, but none more so than Declan Ruth, “Skippy” Stamp, and Paul Codd.

“Paul had a few uncharacteristic misses from frees that on another day he would have fired over, but the character of the man was seen to real effect when he pointed a magnificent equalising point from a free from all of one hundred metres”, Conran said.

The first to acknowledge that their overall display wouldn’t be “nearly good enough to even test champions Kilkenny in next month’s Leinster final, Conran said he will demand “massive improvement from everyone on that day.

“And you know what”, he added, “my absolute belief is that I will get it.”

Conran praised the fiery Offaly challenge, saying it was just what they had expected. And he singled out the superb goalkeeping of Brian Mullins who had denied them several times with breathtaking saves.

“Yes, we were lucky to snatch victory in the end, and yet without the brilliance of their goalkeeper, Offaly might have been seen off much earlier.”

Goalkeeper Damien Fitzhenry described his penalty effort just minutes before the half time break as one of the poorest he has ever taken.

It was, he said, also his first penalty miss in a very long time.

“The ball rose too high for me and flew over the bar, and suddenly the thought dawned on me that this just not might be our day. Thankfully we didn’t need it in the end.”

The long serving Duffry Rovers man said that reigning champions Kilkenny remain the team every other title contender has to beat.

“On today’s display you would say we have little enough chance of beating them”, he said. “but we have always put it up to the Cats and we’ll do so again in the Leinster final. Without the level of spirit we have in our camp we would not have come back as we did in the second half today.”

The final word came from midfielder Rory McCarthy who covered every blade of grass in Nowlan Park and had a hugely influential input into the narrow win.

“We weren’t at the races in the first half, but with Declan Ruth playing superbly on the turnover it gave all of us a lift”, McCarthy said. He said the Offaly goalkeeper had denied them several goals, yet in the end Wexford were ‘blessed’ to book their Leinster final ticket.

“We will go into that game happy in the role of rank outsiders, but rest assured we’ll give Kilkenny a fair old game. Don’t write us off even for one fleeting moment”, the midfielder added.