Dogged Déise shade a gripper

A superb Munster senior hurling championship semi-final in balmy Semple Stadium yesterday, with drama right at the death as Waterford’s championship debutant Stephen O’Keeffe saved a rifled 20m free from Clare custodian Patrick Kelly in the final act of the game to deny the Banner men a victory they had been favoured to achieve.

In the end it was a fully merited win for Waterford, and saw them create their own little bit of history, becoming the first team from the Decies to reach four Munster finals in a row.

And yet such was the see-saw nature of this game, so evenly matched the teams, that had Kelly’s last-ditch effort succeeded, or had Clare sub Darach Honan managed to control the bobbling ball on the edge of the Waterford square a few seconds earlier, or had Nicky O’Connell pointed even two of the three late placed-ball opportunities Clare had and the result been a win for the Banner, that too would have been well merited.