Hegarty happy Wexford have become Model of consistency

IT may have qualified them for a first league final in 59 years, but it was the manner more than the victory against Tyrone which was so pleasing to Wexford’s John Hegarty.

A side that has won admirers for its style, Pat Roe's team have more than a little substance as well.

Even still, it was difficult not to fear that their chances of beating the Ulster side took a sharp downturn when the downpours of Saturday night stretched into the following afternoon. On a firm sod, Mickey Harte's side can be formidable. In conditions like that, it was always going to be a pure war of attrition, readymade for the 2002 and 2003 league champions.

Wexford stood toe to toe with their feared opponents and never blinked. Not even when their normally reliable net-minder John Cooper dropped a routine save at the feet of Martin Penrose only eight minutes in for the simplest of tap-ins.

"When you think about modern Gaelic football you think about three teams Tyrone, Armagh and more recently Kerry who have brought a new level of intensity, of blanket defence, or whatever you like to call it, to the game," Hegarty said yesterday.

"The most pleasing thing about the game for me was we more than matched Tyrone in that department. The greatest compliment you can pay our defence was that they out-tackled Tyrone.

"Before that, everyone was saying what a nice footballing team we were, how we were able to get a few nice scores, but that we hadn't that doggedness that you need to really compete with the top teams."

The bottom line is that Wexford are now 70 minutes from being the first Leinster team to win the league title since Tommy Lyons's Offaly took the garlands back in the 1997-98 season.

Yet, eight minutes into the game on Sunday and the prospects of that seemed unlikely after Cooper spilled the ball.

Three gift-wrapped points on a day like that could have been crucial, even at that early stage, but the repairs were instant, with Matty Forde returning the compliment with a goal of his own just minutes later.

"The fact we recovered so well and so quickly from it shows the belief in the side," claimed Hegarty.

"There was no way we were going to win that game if every single one of us on the panel didn't buy into the fact that we actually could beat Tyrone. In a game like that you can't afford to have even just two or three lads not buying into that."

With a list of scalps that includes Armagh, Galway, Laois, Limerick, Meath and now Tyrone this past two years, it's not exactly rocket science to see why that self-confidence is beginning to mushroom.

"Consistency was what we knew we had to build on this year," said the half-forward.

"We've been building as a team for years now so you could never say we were a flash in the pan, but there's no doubt about it that we were inconsistent last year.

"We'd win a match, then lose one, win one then lose another. There were a few games in the championship where we felt we let ourselves down as well and we've spent all season trying to work on that."

Make no mistake about it, the polish off this league run will soon begin to fade if progress isn't made in the championship, particularly in Leinster.

The warning signs are near at hand too.

In the past 20 years, both Laois (1986) and Offaly ('98) have won league titles only to lose their openers in the province weeks later.

Hegarty can't see them taking their eye off the ball between now and the Leinster opener against Carlow though.

"There's enough players have taken far too many knocks down the years for that to happen us now," said Hegarty, who made his senior debut a decade ago.

"Pat Roe knows about Carlow and there's that history there between us. We'll be ready for both games."