Offaly can beat Meath or Dublin, says Ward

OFFALY’S latest scoring sensation is confident that the county can avoid the purgatory of the Tommy Murphy Cup by accounting for Meath or Dublin in the Leinster semi-final.

PJ Ward marked his debut for Pat Roe’s side with a personal haul of eight points in the championship opener against Carlow. All but two of Ward’s tally came from open play to keep his side’s Leinster and All-Ireland ambitions alive for at least another fortnight.

“There was no talk about the Tommy Murphy Cup all week,” said the man from Mucklagh.

“We didn’t even mention it. We knew we were good enough to beat Carlow.

“We’ll go up to Croke Park now and we’ll give Meath or Dublin, whoever it is, plenty of it up there.

‘‘There’ll be no Tommy Murphy Cup, hopefully.”

Ward’s own story is an interesting one. Born just inside the Westmeath side of the Offaly border to Offaly parents, he first came to prominence on the Westmeath minor team that won a provincial title in 2000.

A spell in New York as a carpenter saw him line out for the ‘county’ in the Connacht championship and he was wearing a maroon strip again last year when he scored four points against Offaly in the Leinster championship.

His uncle Frank Ward has played for Offaly before him and his now chairman of the Offaly Association in London so there is no denying his heritage with adopted county.

Reluctant to discuss the details behind his switch, he was more willing to dissect the performance that saw Offaly account for Carlow over the weekend.

“The main thing is we got the win that we came up to get.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy but we got a run on them and closed them out.

“We let a couple of silly goals in but we’ll make no mistakes the next day.”

If there is a plus point to those late concessions it is that Offaly will have much to ponder before they take the step up in class that Meath or Dublin will demand of them.

“We know we have to work hard when we get back to training on Tuesday night.

“Nothing will come easy. We know we’re going to have a tough game against either Dublin or Meath but we’ll go back, put our heads down in training and take it from there.”

A crack at Dublin would offer Offaly – if not Ward himself – a shot at avenging last year’s Leinster final defeat and the Shamrocks clubman believes that is how it will pan out at Croke Park this Sunday.

“Dublin might just edge it out but I think it’ll be very close again.”