Cat cruise, but Wexford depart with dignity

Kilkenny 0-23 Wexford 1-10

Yesterday they were beaten comprehensively by a team that has few hurling peers, past or present.

That Kilkenny won so comfortably, while never leaving third gear, is neither here nor there. All we asked beforehand was that Wexford would leave everything on the field. That they did.

Another double digit defeat it may have been, but this Wexford performance was everything their tame Leinster final loss wasn’t.

But as John Meyler admitted afterwards, the penny simply has to drop that, at the moment, Wexford are a second-level hurling team but the willingness of men like Damien Fitzhenry, Declan Ruth and Doc O’Connor to return to the trenches year after year should be commended.

Unlike the previous two occasions, Wexford kept the ‘contest’ alive beyond the interval, even if an air of inevitability had begun to settle when Kilkenny took the lead after 17 minutes.

Needless to say then that Wexford’s best spell was the opening quarter when they cantered into a three-point lead before Kilkenny had fully came to terms with the renewed vigour of their challenge and the wet conditions.

Darren Stamp’s point after 11 minutes, when he flicked the sliotar over an opponent’s head before taking aim, was symbolic of the reviving effect their quarter-final win over Tipperary had on Wexford. But it wouldn’t last.

By that stage Kilkenny had already begun to reel them in, but it had been no easy job against a Wexford defence where Malachy Travers, Paul Roche and Diarmuid Lyng were making them work for every score.

Not for the first time, the Kilkenny half-back line was the game breaker. The passage of play that saw Kilkenny assume the lead was typical of the way the game was swinging.

O’Connor had seen a goal chance come and go when PJ Ryan beat him to a high ball in the area before two further Wexford attempts at a consolation point were beaten back by Kilkenny sticks. Seconds later and Eoin Larkin had the ball over Fitzhenry’s crossbar.

Scores were soon coming even easier for the Leinster champions. With 10 minutes to the interval, a number of switches in the forwards saw Shefflin move from full to half-forward and the Ballyhale man revelled in the extra space.

Two points from play was evidence of that and, by half-time, the gap had stretched to five. With Wexford unable to find a route past their half-back line, the conclusion seemed obvious.

The last sniff of an upset, disappeared on 40 minutes when Rory Jacob’s brilliantly-executed square pass was met with a fresh air by substitute Paul Carley from yards out.

Just to rub their noses in it, Kilkenny moved the ball upfield for Martin Comerford to tap one over and, to make matters worse, Kilkenny were still not playing particularly well.

Aside from Shefflin, none of their forwards had the kind of afternoon they will be revisiting on DVD and a final tally of 12 wides will be the stick Cody will beat them with between now and the final.

The same can’t be said for his defence. It was only after John Tennyson and Brian Hogan traded the full and half-back positions with 25 minutes to go when Wexford managed their first scores of the second half.

Even then Kilkenny responded with four straight white flags but, with the deficit again creeping uncomfortably close to July 1 levels, Wexford found it in them to avoid the sting in the tale that so often distorts score-lines at this level.

Held scoreless all afternoon, Michael Jacob got his first point and then found the net after PJ Nolan’s close-range free was batted away by the Kilkenny phalanx. The final say — surprise, surprise — was left to Henry who pointed with a ‘65’.