Kilkenny a bridge too far for Wexford with Fitzgerald the biggest loss of all for Slaneysiders
This game comes a year too soon for emerging home outfit against streetwise Cats
AWEXFORD victory against Kilkenny this evening would blow the race for All-Ireland glory wide open – but I fear this game has come a year too soon for the Slaneysiders.
Wexford are on the right track but many of their players have never dealt with such high levels of expectation, and their fans are desperate for a result.
There’s almost a demand on them to do well and that brings awful pressure. The vast majority of these Kilkenny players are vastly experienced – they’ve been here before and the Innovate Wexford Park cauldron won’t faze them.
Davy Fitzgerald is also serving the final hours of an eight-week ban and he’s a massive loss from the touchline for Wexford.
Lee Chin has already spoken about how he missed Davy on the line against Laois, and how the incident with Jason Forde in the league semi-final against Tipp actually gave him a lift. Davy’s going to be missed because he’d be capable of getting a partisan home crowd right behind the team.
I saw it at first hand when Wexford beat Limerick in the first round of the league, when a bit of a shemozzle broke out.
Davy rallied the troops and got the crowd onside. That’s what he does – and he’s brilliant at it.
The Cats are aware of the environment they’re about to enter but Davy would have set the tone from the off. Having him in the stand will blunt Wexford’s edge because if there was even a whiff of petrol around the sideline, Davy would strike the match.
Still, it’s great for hurling that Wexford are back. The game sold out in a matter of hours and there’s not a ticket to be had.
TV viewers will be glued to this and I can assure you that Innovate Wexford Park is in immaculate condition, because I paid a visit there recently.
There’s even talk of a big screen in Wexford town centre but there’s not a word from Kilkenny.
Everything’s low-key from their point of view, they’re being written off as All-Ireland contenders and I’ve gone on the record myself as stating that this will be their most challenging Leinster campaign in years.
But this is where they’re at their most dangerous. They’ll have learned from the league defeat to Wexford in April, plus they’ll have Michael Fennelly and Ger Aylward back.
I’m backing Kilkenny to win with a few points to spare but if Wexford are to pull off a famous win, three things need to go their way.
First of all, they must not concede goals. Against the Cats in that league fixture at Nowlan Park, they kept a ‘clean sheet’ and the ‘sweeper’ system worked well.
If Davy Fitz’s men are to come out on top, Shaun Murphy and that defensive system will have to operate with maximum effect once again. We’ve seen in the past how Kilkenny struggle against sweepers, and in tight, confined pitches.
For evidence, you can go back to 2013 in Portlaoise, twice, when Kilkenny drew with Dublin there before losing the replay.
This Wexford venue is tight and the cauldron of noise, allied to the sweeper set-up, will prove difficult hurdles for Kilkenny to vault.
Secondly, it’s hard to imagine that, between them, TJ Reid, Richie Hogan, Walter Walsh and Colin Fennelly managed just three points from play against Wexford in April.
CONTAIN
The odds of that happening again are sky-high – and history won’t repeat itself. For the home side to have any hope, they’ll have to contain those four as best they can, particularly Reid and Hogan.
Reid is the main man and I’d expect James Breen to follow him, with Matthew O’Hanlon detailed to pick up Walsh.
The Model men are sure to have a designated marker for each Kilkenny forward but I fear for them in this regard.
I believe that Davy may have shown his hand too early in that league match. It caught Kilkenny by surprise that day and from Brian Cody’s perspective, forewarned is forearmed.
Thirdly, Wexford need eight or nine out of ten performances from their two marquee forwards – Chin and Conor McDonald.
When they won at Nowlan Park, Chin thundered into the game in the second half and McDonald delivered a top-class display, giving Pádraig Walsh all sorts of problems in the air.
It’s crucial that Cody gets his match-ups right on these two. Cillian Buckley may be the man to meet Chin head on but with Pádraig Walsh injured, Kilkenny
could have a problem with McDonald.
What Kilkenny can ill-afford is to give McDonald and Wexford the green grass they had in the league match.
Tipperary went to town on them with space in last year’s All-Ireland final and this is something you’d rarely associate with Kilkenny in previous years, because their centre-back always stayed close to the ‘D’. I suspect this will happen tonight.
I’ve stated previously that if Kilkenny are missing one of Paul Murphy, Conor Fogarty or Walsh, they’ll struggle defensively because the resources are not there to replace that calibre of player.
Fogarty didn’t play in the league game but if Michael Fennelly returns at midfield, you could see Buckley moving back to pick up Chin, and to bolster a defence missing Walsh.
Brian Cody will surely have a plan to nullify Chin’s influence.
The Cats are very good at counteracting opponents who’ve previously caused them problems when they meet them again.
In last year’s All-Ireland semifinal replay against Waterford, Cody pulled off a masterstroke by playing Reid and Hogan at midfield, with Michael Fennelly in the centre-forward position.
TRIANGLE
The three of them interchanged in a triangle and I’d expect a similar strategy. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Reid or Hogan at midfield, maybe even both.
Kilkenny are going to flood that middle third with their best players, and turn the area into a war-zone.
Cody won’t have minded in the slightest that all the talk has been about Wexford leading up to this showdown.
Massive work has gone into this fixture and looking at the venue, I was a little envious, when comparing it to our own Walsh Park.
With the backing of Croke Park, the Waterford venue could be turned into a lovely stadium in the next few years but right now, Innovate Wexford Park is on a different level.
Tonight, it will be heaving and this is a fixture I can’t wait for. The Slaneysiders have their injury concerns but Davy’s their biggest loss.
His fire-and-brimstone approach could have made all the difference but without him, I suspect that this is a bridge too far.