Galway ease past Waterford

Waterford 1-14 Galway 5-13

Galway claimed their third win of NHL Division 1A as their two-man full forward line of Eugene Cloonan and Damien Hayes ruled Walsh Park in a 5-13 to 1-14 win over league leaders Waterford.

Cloonan bagged two early goals, the first on 9 minute laid off for the Athenry forward by David Tierney, and the second nine minutes later, hit low past Ian O’Regan, was fashioned by Kiltomer corner forward David Hayes, a nephew of manager Conor Hayes.

Rory Gantley pointed on 22 minutes to put Galway into a 2-6 to 0-5 lead against the league leaders, with only Dan Shanahan firing well for the hosts, with an excellent score from a 50-metre run after a quarter-of-an-hour.

Cloonan, who hit 12 points against Kilkenny, ended the half with 2-5 as a wind-backed Galway closed out to a 2-10 to 0-6 half time lead as Alan Kerins (0-2), and Gantley, Damien Hayes and David Forde completed the scoring.

Dave Bennett hit over a ’65 fifty seconds after the restart but two minutes later Damien Hayes, playing with Cloonan in a two-man full forward line, latched onto a long ball from Kerins to blast to the Waterford net.

Approaching the hour mark, Hayes again netted to move the Galway tally to 4-12, but Waterford rallied late with a 20-metre free from Paul Flynn goaled five minutes from the whistle.

However it was to be Cloonan (3-7 in total) and Hayes’ day as the Athenry man pulled on a dropping ’65 to claim his third goal.

John Mullane ended the scoring for Waterford forty seconds from time, but the South East men currently remain top of the table on points difference.