Waterford toss away chance of early advantage

PLAYING against the All-Ireland champions and needing every break they could get, why did underdogs Waterford opt to play against the strong wind in Dungarvan yesterday?

They won the toss, that was their chance to put the Kingdom under pressure – take the wind, force the visitors to defend, perhaps even build up a bit of a lead by the break, take some momentum into the second half.

So why give away that advantage? Nothing to do with me, said manager John Kiely. “I have no idea, I don’t ever worry about things like that; I let that up to the players, they’re the boys who are playing.”

Team captain Brian Wall was the one in the centre of the park, the one who gave the indication to referee Ger Kinneavy. He told a different story.

“The management decided beforehand that we’d play against the breeze if we won the toss. We played well against Clare in the first-half against the breeze, so we decided to try the same tactics again.”

Player decision, management decision – regardless of whose it was, it was absolutely the wrong decision.

It took the home team to the 30th minute to register their first score, a point from midfielder Mick Aherne.

Their defence, meanwhile, was under almost constant pressure, pressure which they managed to withstand fairly successfully for the first quarter, suggestive that perhaps they had indeed made the right decision. Then came the Eoin Brosnan double-barrel blast.

“Things were going pretty well,” said Wall. “We were hanging in, but then we lost the grip on the game. The two quick goals killed us, so in hindsight, I suppose…”.

In hindsight we can all be right. The bald truth is, no matter what Waterford did, no matter which way they’d played in the first-half, they weren’t going to beat Kerry, not in the mood the All-Ireland champions were in.

Yet Waterford can take positives from this. In corner-back Justin Walsh they had a real terrier, a man-marker par excellence; Thomas O’Gorman was given the unenviable task of trying to hold last year’s full-forward sensation Kieran Donaghy, and hold him Thomas did, while Shane Briggs also did well in his corner. All of which was acknowledged afterwards by manager Kiely.

“Young Gorman did okay at full-back, but in fairness to Kieran he’s going to be under a lot of pressure this year, everybody will be out to stick the knife in him. I don’t mean a player, but the media and everyone, they’ll be wanting to say he had a bad game. But he’s a lovely young fella, I think he’ll handle the pressure, he’ll improve as the year goes on. Justin in the corner was a great bit of stuff – he certainly gave Mike Frank (Russell) a torrid time there, and Mike Frank is a fair player. Briggsy also did well on Gooch, but it’s nice to see Goochy coming back to something like his best, he kicked over some nice scores. Overall it was a good sporting game, but sure they had 12 All-Stars and started with six in the forwards.”

Added Wall: “When we look back, Kerry are All-Ireland champions, and deservedly so. They’re a very strong, physical team. On the day we weren’t up to it, but we gave it a good go in the second half and put it up to them. I think we represented Waterford proudly today. We fought to the end and we can hold our heads high.”