Calum Lyons goal helps Waterford end 1,175-day wait for Munster SHC win
Calum Lyons of Waterford shoots to score his side's goal. Picture: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
Waterford’s 1,175-day wait for a championship victory is no more, the Déise outsmarting Cork to advance to a first Munster final since 2016.
This four-point win brings to an end Waterford’s nine-game run without a championship victory, the gap finally bridged to the county’s All-Ireland semi-final win over Cork in August of 2017.
For Waterford boss Liam Cahill, this provincial semi-final triumph represented a most satisfactory senior inter-county championship managerial debut. For his players, a massive weight is lifted, one which had grown heavier and heavier over the 38 months where they failed to come out on top in a championship fixture.
Cork’s attention now turns to the qualifiers. This was a showing they will want to forget in a hurry. Their hurling, to a great extent, lacked direction. Their passing was nowhere near as structured or purposeful as Waterford.
Waterford were ahead by three at the break and this advantage doubled to six when Calum Lyons tore in along the Ryan Stand side, pursued by two Cork defenders, before lodging the sliotar in Anthony Nash’s goal with a perfectly executed drop-shot.
Jack Prendergast and Stephen Bennett (free) were subsequently on target to stretch Waterford eight in front.
Two in-a-row from Seamus Harnedy and a long-range Christopher Joyce effort brought the gap back to five, 1-19 to 0-17, on 43 minutes. No closer would Cork come, though, until Patrick Horgan fired to the net two minutes into injury-time.
Scores came much easier to the winners, their ability to time and again punch holes in the opposition defence meant Cork were kept at arm’s length for much of the second period.
You could make the case that Cork, though not motoring well, would have been the happier with the interval scoreline of 0-15 to 0-12 in Waterford’s favour.
The Déise enjoyed the backing of the breeze in the opening half, but their radar malfunctioned on numerous occasions. Liam Cahill’s side finished the half with just one less wide than they managed white flags.
That Cork took eight fewer shots on goal than their opponents reflected Waterford’s slight dominance from open play in the opening half. Certainly, Waterford were much the crisper in transferring possession from defence to attack, with Cork’s passing out of their backline leaving plenty to be desired. It was not in any way a smooth sailing first 35 minutes for Cork’s troubled half-back line. And yet for all of this, Cork were only a puck of the ball behind.
Waterford were probably guilty of not feeding inside forward Dessie Hutchinson enough as he looked to have the beating of his man each time possession was angled in his direction. The former professional footballer struck a pair of first-half points and also won a free which Stephen Bennett converted.
The latter enjoyed a solid first-half from the placed-ball, throwing over six frees. Mind you, it did take him time to settle as he sent wide two early frees.
There were two late changes to the Cork team named on Friday night, with Colm Spillane and Aidan Walsh making way for championship debutants Sean O’Leary Hayes and Daire Connery.
The opening stages were played at fairly breakneck speed, Shane Kingston’s eighth-minute point the ninth score of this Munster semi-final.
Ahead by 0-5 to 0-4 at this juncture, Cork’s efforts to increase their advantage was frustrated by a succession of misses. They would not score again until the 20th minute, by which stage their wides tally had grown to nine.
Waterford rattled off five without reply during this 11-minute barren Cork spell, this sequence of points delivered by Shane McNulty, Kieran Bennett, Jamie Barron, Austin Gleeson, and Shane Bennett (free).
Cork, through a delicious Mark Coleman sideline cut and Patrick Horgan, closed the gap to two, 0-10 to 0-8, but there followed four-in-a-row from Hutchinson and three Bennett frees to put six between them on the half-hour mark.
Kieran Kingston's charges were successful in halving this deficit come half-time but back on level terms they never got.
For Waterford, the win was certainly worth the long, long wait.
S Bennett (0-12, 0-12 free); C Lyons (1-2); A Gleeson, D Hutchinson, J Barron (0-3 each); S McNulty, K Moran, K Bennett, J Prendergast, P Curran (0-1 each).
P Horgan (1-8, 1-3 frees); S Kingston (0-4); S Harnedy (0-3); M Coleman (0-1 sc), B Cooper, C Lehane (0-2 each); C Joyce, D Dalton, A Cadogan (0-1 each).
S O’Keeffe; S Fives, C Prunty, S McNulty; C Lyons, T de Búrca, K Moran; J Barron, K Bennett; J Prendergast, A Gleeson, J Fagan; D Hutchinson, S Bennett, J Dillon.
B Power for K Bennett (55); N Montgomery for Fagan (62); D Lyons for Dillon (63); P Curran for A Gleeson (70).
A Nash; S O’Leary Hayes, D Cahalane, S O’Donoghue; C Joyce, R Downey, T O’Mahony; M Coleman, B Cooper; C Lehane, S Kingston, D Connery; P Horgan, S Harnedy, A Cadogan.
J O’Connor for Connery (40 mins); D Dalton for Lehane (54); L Meade for Cadogan (57); B Hennessy for Joyce (63); B Turnbull for Harnedy (72).
S Stack (Dublin).
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