After New York blizzard, Galway run into a Waterford storm

Waterford boss Michael Boland is still taking their victory over Galway at Kenny Park on Saturday “with a pinch of salt”.

Waterford's Vikki Falconer and Carrie Dolan of Galway. Pic: ©INPHO/Bryan Keane

Waterford may have made the dream start to the Centra National Camogie League with back-to-back wins over last year’s All-Ireland finalists, but manager Michael Boland is still taking their 0-12 to 1-5 victory over Galway at Kenny Park on Saturday “with a pinch of salt”.

“It doesn’t change anything, we’re only four weeks into the season so a lot of teams don’t have a lot done, but we’ll take a lot of confidence from it all the same,” was his post-match verdict in Athenry.

“What we’re trying to do in training is starting to come in, it’s just not there for the full 60 minutes. A lot of it is because we haven’t been on fields due to the weather in the winter, but that’ll take shape over the next three or four weeks.

“Galway were away on holidays so you have to take that with a pinch of salt,” he added, referring to the All-Ireland champions’ difficulties in getting home from their trip to the United States.

Heavy snowstorms in the New York area delayed Galway’s return to Ireland, and their manager Cathal Murray was far from regretful, even if he accepted that it left his team on the back foot for this game.

“We wouldn’t swap New York for anything, we enjoyed ourselves out there,” was his description of the upheaval. But we just got caught up in a snowstorm and a lot of the girls weren’t back until 5 o’clock on Thursday morning, and you can’t expect to beat a team like Waterford if that’s your preparation.” 

In addition, Murray rotated his panel, continuing his bid to try and freshen up the squad and share around the playing minutes as he has done in this competition ever since taking over the reins.

“Ten players that started today were U23 last year, we had only six that started last year’s All-Ireland final. Laura Freaney, Ava Crowe, Aoibhe Carr all made their league debut today,” he said.

In Division 1B, Clare are now the only unbeaten side after they picked up a 3-8 to 2-8 win over Limerick at Cappamore, though it looked for long stages of the second half as if things were going against the Banner County.

They were 2-3 to 0-6 ahead at half-time after playing into the breeze but goals from Laura Southern and Lizanna Boylan actually put Limerick two up going into the closing minutes. A Lorna McNamara free and a Jennifer Daly point levelled the game and then a combination of the new rules and the audacity of McNamara combined to create the match-winning goal.

Dublin put the disappointment of their loss to Down behind them with a 2-9 to 0-10 win over Wexford in Bunclody that puts them back in the mix to scrape into the top two.

Dublin’s next game will be in a fortnight against Offaly, who will also go into that fixture with confidence after 1-9 from Clodagh Leahy helped them to beat Down by 3-12 to 0-10 in Birr.