Clare size up summer rivals with Walsh Park rehearsal
ABIT like Dublin buses, Waterford spent an age waiting for a significant home game at Walsh Park and suddenly three come along at once.
Today’s Allianz League quarterfinal against Clare may be the least important in that sequence of games, especially with Clare calling again in the opening game of the Munster Championship, followed by Limerick, but it would be a wasted opportunity if they did not take it seriously.
Páraic Fanning is in desperate need to get a read on where his team really is after an early spring spent in the League’s second tier and Clare will not be shy in affording him that opportunity.
It is early days, but the signs are encouraging, not least in beating Galway last weekend.
Okay, allowing for the conditions, the value of that victory is diluted a little.
That is not Waterford’s fault but it is most certainly the GAA’s.
I am not blaming the GAA for the bad weather, but it is a slight on the League when the final round of the group stages was played in the kind of conditions that reduce games to a lottery. They were a test of endurance rather than hurling skill.
The argument will be made that they had no other choice because of the need to ensure that next month remains exclusively for clubs, but we already saw last year that ‘April for clubs’ is more of a PR exercise than a strategy to give club players meaningful game time.
After all, most inter-county teams continued to prepare right through the month and, in the vast majority of cases, weakened club teams played in not very important games. And this was used by the GAA as evidence that real action had been taking in addressing the fixtures crisis.
Both the inter-county and club game would be far better served with a properly integrated fixture schedule. If one was in place, more respect would have been shown to both the players and the competition than sending them out in conditions like last weekend.
However, I digress. Irrespective of the conditions, beating Galway at any time of the year is good for a team’s health.
It was an unexpected League win over Galway last spring which served as the foundation for Limerick’s spectacular summer and while Waterminds season may not follow that precise trajectory, it is, for now, full of promise. Securing Walsh Park as their Championship base is a big part of that. Derek McGrath was honest enough to acknowledge recently that he should have taken a tougher stance with the Munster Council last year, but it was an admission that came 12 months too late. Home advantage is not something that should be conceded or should be dictated by how much the GAA can enrich itself at the turnstiles. Giving that up last year cost Waterford big time. It should help them this summer but, perversely, I suspect that Gerry O’Connor and Donal Moloney were delighted that they get to travel to Walsh Park today. It is the perfect dry run for Clare, but they should be more interested in getting an eyeful of who they will be facing this summer rather than where they will actually be playing. My suspicion is that we will see a Waterford team with a far more adventurous mindset under Fanning than under the previous management. If their are right, there is no doubt that they have the talent to deliver.
It was only a solitary score, but that point by Jamie Barron last weekend hinted at a team who are beginning to rediscover the joy in their game.
It was so mischievous; Shane Bennett, in a prearranged move, addressing a sideline cut but barely touching it before walking away as if he was leaving it for Barron to take and the Waterford midfielder was therefore unmarked as he picked up the ‘live’ ball and fired it over the bar unmarked.
For pure ingenuity you will not see a better score this year, and it really looked like these guys are having fun again.
I am not suggesting that they did not enjoy playing for McGrath — they were evidently committed to playing under him — but the problem was that under a deeplyregimented game-plan they had stopped thinking for themselves.
If good players — and Waterford have them in abundance — are to get maximum enjoyment out of the game, they have to be able to think for themselves and occasionally, as with Bennett last Sunday, think outside the box.
The question that remains for Waterford is if they have the physical resolve to go head-to-head with the very best, and we will only see that when they are pitford’s ted against the likes of Limerick, Galway and Tipperary in mid-summer.
But a win over Clare would be a great starting point and this is a game they are well capable of winning.
The Banner are a bit of a mystery; they have a lot of good young players and exceptional leaders in the likes of Tony Kelly and John Conlon and yet you can never trust them to get the job done.
Their decision-making is not the best at times and neither is their discipline; against Cork and Limerick they gave up some terrible soft frees which ultimately cost them the points.
And that could cost them here as well; they are vulnerable on the road and they tend to be spooked into making bad decisions when the opposition get on any kind of roll.
That should set up a Waterford semi-final meeting with Galway, who I expect to squeeze past Wexford in another fascinating last eight clash today.
I suspect Galway are itching to have another shot at Limerick and that could well happen in the final.
Mind you, Limerick will have it all to do against a resurgent Tipperary who, if they maintain the form they showed against Cork last weekend, should blow Dublin away in their own quarter-final.
The good news is that after a League campaign where we were blinded by smoke, we are about to see some sparks.