Déise make most of Monday
Waterford breasted the tape four points ahead of Clare in this Munster SHC semi-final, a championship game in league clothing played before just 11,028 spectators.
Waterford were aware of potential ambushes before this game, for all that a template was already to hand from the Cork-Tipperary clash last Sunday week: experienced team chokes younger opponents in victory. Old dogs. Hard roads. After that the story writes itself.
Clearly Clare’s copy of that script won’t drop through the letterbox until tomorrow morning, however. The Banner youngsters didn’t follow their lines and give way to their elders until very late in the day.
Spurred on by Darach Honan’s venomously struck first-half goal – he must have the tightest swing of any 6ft7 hurler we know – they kept abreast of Waterford until Davy Fitzgerald’s men showed some guile to stretch their lead to four points with time almost up.
It can’t be a coincidence that veterans like Eoin Kelly, the Prendergast brothers and Ken McGrath scored those decisive last four points.
For all their much-starred forwards, however, the Deise had to rely on an unlikely saviour. Declan Prendergast came on at wing-back and reeled off three points to drive the Waterford recovery (asked after the game how it felt to outscore his brother Seamus, the defender was deadpan. “It wasn’t hard today,” said Declan. “He wasn’t great.”)
The most significant factor yesterday was probably the breeze making the flags on the town end terrace stand out stiffly. In the first half Waterford tried to work their way through the Clare midfield with Noel Connors collecting short puck-outs from Clinton Hennessy, and after the break Clare came unstuck against the same gale.
Waterford had adopted the strategy suggested to U12s all over the country: they made a wall across the field. Easy to do when you have an in-form Declan Prendergast, Mr Dependable Brick Walsh and Tony ‘Dorian’ Browne.
Afterwards Ger O’Loughlin, the Clare boss, conceded that the breeze was a factor.
“It was a game that the wind had a bearing on. We probably got more goal chances than they did. If you look at it, Donal Tuohy had no save to make. Darach (Honan) was unlucky, he got in there in the second half. They’re the ones in a tight game you need to put away and he didn’t. We got a point out of it but if you’re rattling the net with those it just eases the pressure a small bit.
“We have to learn and we have to take every chance we get but I’m proud of the lads for their display.”
His opposite number and one-time team-mate with Clare, Davy Fitzgerald, said relief was the over-riding emotion after the game.
“A different feeling coming into this. I’m just glad it’s just done now. I suppose a lot of people will write us off after this. We have to step it up big time. Compared to what we saw last Sunday it was amazing how Cork played and we know we have to step it up.”
Davy wasn’t the only man looking ahead to Leeside conflict. Declan Prendergast, who soldiered in the fabled clashes with Cork in the last decade, was making the same assumptions.
“It wouldn’t be good enough to beat Cork – they’re not there yet but they more than likely will be there in a month’s time in the Munster final. We’d have to be a lot better.”
That’s the kind of talk that will have Denis Walsh spitting out his corn flakes down in Ballynoe, but the hurling world, Limerick apart, is rubbing its hands at the prospect of Cork-Waterford thanks to memories of 1998.
And 2002. Not to mention 2003. And 2004. Or the three games in 2007. They’ve got previous.
As for the pitiful attendance, the Munster Council punt on a Bank Holiday game was a beaten docket long before yesterday’s throw-in. The Square in Thurles was deserted before the game, and one of the terraces in Semple Stadium was bare and grey. The atmosphere before the game plumbed the depths of an old Clive James line about an occasion so bad that passing birds dropped stunned from the sky.
Whether either county’s fans stand indicted on the grounds of commitment is something we’ll return to again, but in Waterford and Clare, a dislike of Mondays isn’t just a Boomtown Rats song.
In fairness, the game was good, despite the gusting wind and slippery turf, and credit both teams for creating a party out of a wake. However, even if Limerick turn Cork over in the other semi-final, we’ll be rewriting the title of that old Melina Mercouri movie in petition.
Never on Monday.
