Wexford survive late scare to see off the Dubs
GROUNDHOG day for Dublin’s hurlers. For the second Sunday in a row, Pat Gilroy’s side were leading their more-fancied opponents in a Championship match as the fourth official lifted the board to indicate injury-time. And in that spell, they lost the game.
This was a little different to the gut-wrenching manner that they lost to Kilkenny in Parnell Park. Wexford had been the superior side for most of this match. But they were unable to shake a gutsy Dublin side off and when Paul Ryan found the net with a sublime finish in the 62nd minute, it looked like the Dubs would do to the Slaneysiders what they had suffered a week earlier.
Having lost control of the match at a crucial juncture, mistakes were starting to creep into Wexford’s game. They became careless in possession. But they still had enough composure and quality to find the scores when they needed them.
And they had leaders like Diarmuid O’Keeffe, who surged from wing-back, as he did all afternoon, and set up Rory O’Connor for a point in the 71st minute. It was O’Connor’s first point from play on a day when he was almost flawless from placedballs. Moments later, substitute Harry Kehoe made sure of Wexford’s first win over Dublin in Championship hurling for a decade.
O’Connor was a fitting hero for Wexford. Free-taking has been an issue for the side since Davy Fitzgerald took over, but the teenager — son of 1996 All-Ireland winner John — wore the responsibility easily in the National League and did so again here yesterday, in front of a crowd of 10,228.
He converted seven of the eight frees he took in the first half and nailed 11 over the course of a game. In an encounter where both sides were guilty of some wayward shooting and poor decision-making up front (they had 14 wides apiece in total), O’Connor’s nerveless execution was vital.
Wexford scored 12 frees in all (the impressive Paudie Foley nailed a long-range effort), twice the amount that Dublin did. It mirrors the Kilkenny game, when Dublin’s opponents also scored twice as many from placed-balls.
Conceding so many frees is a consequence of the more physical edge that Gilroy has injected into his side, but the manager did wonder about the high free count against his team.
‘Yeah, we don’t seem to be getting too many and we seem to be giving them away,’ Gilroy agreed. ‘We have to look at it. Is there something specific we are doing that the opposition are not doing? It is hard to see how we could be giving away twice as many scoreable frees in both games. But we have to take it on the chin. You can’t be giving away that many frees at this level. And it has come back to haunt us.’
There was real tension in the air in the final few minutes and Gilroy was at the centre of one flashpoint when Wexford’s Simon Donohue appeared to shove the manager, leading to a scuffle involving Danny Sutcliffe and O’Connor, but the Dublin boss played down that incident afterwards.
That incident fired up the Dublin players even more and when substitute David Treacy split the posts from a difficult angle, an unlikely victory was on the cards. But Wexford remained calm and composed, O’Connor more than anyone. With his team three points down going down to injurytime, he kept his nerve to nail a free in a thrilling final few minutes.
It was a win Wexford deserved, just about. O’Connor’s ability to punish any Dublin indiscretion and the relentless drive of Paudie Foley and Kevin Foley around the middle third ensured that on a day when Conor McDonald had a poor game and Lee Chin wasn’t
as influential as usual, the Slaneysiders still had the maturity and know-how to engineer a win.
Dublin seemed to be feeling the effects of that heart-breaker in Parnell Park for much of the first half. Rian McBride’s goal in the 13th minute, when he pulled firsttime on the ball after Paul Ryan’s shot had been blocked, kept the visitors in the game but they didn’t score a point from play until the 31st minute when Jake Malone found his range.
A moment later, Paddy Smyth, who had another excellent game in the full-back line, added another point to put Dublin ahead for the first time, 1-6 to 0-8.
That seemed to spark Wexford into life. A combination of McDonald and Kevin Foley created a goal-scoring opportunity for Paul Morris, but goalkeeper Alan Nolan did brilliantly to smother Morris’ effort. It was another accomplished display by the Dublin custodian, who made three fine saves during the match.
It was O’Connor who had the final say in the first half, but Fitzgerald would say after the match, that he was most impressed by his team’s blocking and hooking. And their ability to battle their way back into a game that seemed lost.
After Ryan’s goal in the 62nd minute, there was an extra pep in Dublin’s step. Cian Boland came off the bench and exerted an influ-
ence, while Sutcliffe grew more into the game. Sean Moran was calm and composed yet again in the sweeping role but he was guilty of hitting three wides in a row when the game was in the melting pot.
The wayward shooting and the frees they conceded will be the two major regrets as the Dublin team bus left the south-east yesterday evening. It means the match against Offaly in Parnell Park will now be the relegation decider everyone believed it would before the start of this Championship.
And for all the strides that Dublin have made in the past two matches, they still have no return. Gilroy says his team will learn from this and what happened last weekend. But they will have to learn fast.
WEXFORD: M Fanning; D Reck, L Ryan, S Donohue; S Murphy, M O’Hanlon, P Foley; D O’Keeffe, K Foley; A Nolan, L Chin, R O’Connor; J O’Connor, P Morris (C Dunbar 51), C McDonald (H Kehoe 54).
Scorers: R O’Connor 0-12 (11f), P Foley (1f), L Chin 0-2, H Kehoe, K Foley, J O’Connor, A Nolan, D O’Keeffe, P Morris 0-1.
Yellow cards: S Donohue 27, S Murphy 27, J O’Connor 46. Wides: (10) 14.
DUBLIN: A Nolan; P Smyth, C O’Callaghan, B O’Carroll (D Treacy 51); E O’Donnell, S Moran, C Crummey; S Barrett (T Connolly 43), J Malone; R McBride (R Hayes 59), F McGibb (P Winters 66), D Sutcliffe; F Whitely (C Boland 43), L Rushe, P Ryan.
Scorers: P Ryan 1-7 (0-6f, 0-1 ’65), R McBride 1-1, D Sutcliffe, L Rushe, C Boland, D Treacy, J Malone, P Smyth 0-1.
Wides: (7) 14. Yellow cards: L Rushe 28, F McGibb 30, B O’Carroll 43, C Crummey 46. Referee: C Lyons (Cork).