Waterford overcome Offaly to make it back-to-back home wins in Division 1A
DEISE DELIGHT: Reuben Halloran of Waterford celebrates after scoring his side's goal. Pic: Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile.
A far from a convincing display – it was far from a quality contest either – but the Déise ended with six points to spare over Offaly, leaving them with four points from three games in Division 1A.
With back-to-back wins secured at Walsh Park, their next outing with Kilkenny becomes all the more important.
There were certainly aspects of the display here that will concern Peter Queally, though. They scored just 1-7 from play in 70 minutes and finished with 12 wides, and for a touch, it looked as though they might not even get a positive result.
Four changes from the win over Limerick yielded a very different display here. Waterford were sluggish and sloppy, and with 44 minutes played they led their opponents by two, 0-12 to 0-10.
When Eoghan Cahill set up Brian Duignan for a goal chance, the Faithful thought they had taken the lead, only for Billy Nolan to make the stop. Even then, Offaly almost had a second bite at the cherry when the rebound fell for Adam Screeney, but he missed his pulled effort.
Waterford’s counter almost saw that become a six-point swing when they broke with pace, but Mark Fitzgerald failed to get the ball to hand and punish the Faithful miss. The story of the game for both sides. Wasteful.
But from the 50th to 53rd minute Waterford hit more than two points without reply for the first time in this contest with two placed balls from the excellent Reuben Halloran, who finished with 1-12, kickstarting a run of 1-4.
In the 54th minute, they finally shook free from Offaly, Jamie Barron and Calum Lyons carrying possession through tackle after tackle. Offaly couldn’t stop the inevitable.
Lyons found Halloran, and he rifled across goal and into the bottom corner to leave it 1-15 to 0-10. The brief spark where this game felt like anything more than a challenge match had come and gone.
Offaly would finally get their second score of the second half in the 63rd minute through Dan Bourke, and thy would hit five of the last eight, but they never looked like coming back into contention.
Twice in the first half Offaly had come close to hitting the net. Both Screeney and Brian Duignan had seen chances go over instead of under, the latter’s effort in the 35th minute had drawn them level for the third time at 0-9 each.
The Déise were lethargic in the opening period, allowing themselves more time in possession on the short restarts. Iarlaith Daly was the spare Waterford defender as Offaly played with two up front and kept Brecon Kavanagh as the sweeper, and they were competitive for the opening period.
Screeney had done well and picked off a couple of decent scores, Ter Guinan was lively too for the visitors – but once Waterford got over the initial slump and Conor Keane tightened his grip on Screeney, there was only going to be one winner.
R Halloran 1-12 (0-9 f, 0-3 65), B Nolan, B Lynch, C Lyons, M Kiely, P Curran, S Bennett, S Walsh 0-1 each.
A Screeney 0-10 (0-8 f), D Ravenhill (f), L Watkins, D Bourke, O Kelly, B Duignan, D Nally 0-1 each.
B Nolan; C Keane, I Daly, A O’Neill; Shane Bennett, D Lalor, B Lynch; C Daly, D Lyons; C Lyons, J Barron, T O’Connell; R Halloran, M Kiely, P Curran.
Stephen Bennett for O’Connell, M Fitzgerald for C Daly (both HT), C Treen for Curran (57), S Mackey for Lalor (60), S Walsh for Kiely (63), M Power for Keane (68 inj).
M Troy; B Miller, B Conneely, S Bourke; B Kavanagh; D Ravenhill, C King, R Ravenhill; L Watkins, D Bourke; T Guinan, E Cahill, O Kelly; B Duignan, A Screeney.
J Clancy for R Ravenhill (35+3 inj), P Taaffe for S Bourke, C Spain for Guinan (both 55), C Cleary for Watkins (57), D Nally for Cahill (61), L Nolan for Screeney (70+4).
C Mooney (Dublin).
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