Cork will hope to add to Waterford’s Walsh Park woes in first round of Munster

Championship opener between Waterford and Cork is everything to both camps.

Lose and you’re facing a mountain to climb to make the top three. Win and you might just carry the momentum deep into the summer months. Given that both of these sides missed out on qualification last year, there isn’t room for slip-ups.

Ryan acknowledged the added “tactical element” that will go into picking a team to face the Déise. How they decode what Davy Fitz will bring is the next challenge.

Cork were comfortable 0-27 to 0-18 victors in their opener last year as Waterford suffered the effects of going toe-to-toe with Limerick the week before. Darragh Fitzgibbon ran them ragged from the start with five shots inside eight minutes. He ended with 0-4 while the experienced heads of Séamus Harnedy, Conor Lehane, and Patrick Horgan combined for 0-16.

In this spring’s league meeting, Cork constructed a 10-point lead before Waterford belatedly found the radar to make them sweat; 1-21 to 1-19 for a finish. Again, there were major gains from direct running at their defence as Jack O’Connor tallied 1-3.

Ryan wasn’t reading too deeply into that league encounter, although he will hope their issue of fading out of games for spells has been put to bed. That day Fitzgerald was talking Cork up as being “in the first one or two for the All-Ireland Championship”.

“They’re even better since then,” the Banner native added when asked about Cork recently.

“You see what they did to Wexford. It’s going to be a big ask. The question is, what did we learn about them and what have we learned from last year? How smart we can be? Cork are a top-class side. The talent they have available is massive, from under-20 winners and underage.

“But we know what’s coming. We know the pace they have in their side, what we’ll get from their attacking third. It’s up to us to work as hard as we can to be ready for that.

“We’ve gone over it. We’ve talked about it. We’re going to try and see can we deal with certain aspects of play they have. And trust me, they will have to deal with certain aspects of play we’ll have. They will have to, so they will.

“There’s certain areas we’ve identified that have caused us problems in two games and we’ve got to see can we nail them. That’s what we’re going to try and do.

“I’m as excited as I’ve ever been about a game. I want that to come and I want to see what we’re about.”

It’s hard to predict a Waterford team given the injury woes that blighted their league campaign. Goalkeeper Shaun O’Brien, defender Mark Fitzgerald, midfielder Paddy Leavey, and forward Jack Prendergast were ever-present.

Stephen Bennett, Conor Prunty, Tadhg de Búrca, Iarlaith Daly, and Colin Dunford have seen precious little game-time.

Davy Fitz was playing into that sense of mystery after the final-round loss to Kilkenny.

“You’ll see the last day we changed the shape completely – we didn’t play a plus one. That’s not to say we won’t in championship – we might. We wanted to try out a few different things.”

The depth of Cork’s resources is well established but it’s getting all their game-breakers on the field that has been the issue. Mark Coleman, Robbie O’Flynn, and Alan Connolly all have that X-factor when fit and firing. Their returns have been most welcome.

For a variety of reasons, Ryan’s selections were a mismatch of options during the league, with no player starting all five matches. Patrick Collins, Tommy O’Connell, Conor Lehane, Ger Millerick, Patrick Horgan, and Shane Barrett played more minutes than anyone else, but who could say their position is fully safe?

The key is balancing that competitive tension with familiarity between players on the field. Limerick have been the most settled team of the past seven years and their success has owed plenty to their telepathic understanding of each other’s style of play.

Cork’s goal-scoring rate has been impressive. Their 12 goals was the highest of any team in the league group stage and their eight in championship last year tied top with Clare. Keep the concessions down and those numbers could carry them a long way.

The Déise will be compact in defence to limit that danger, but will need to find more on the attacking end. That’s the trade-off they have struggled with against the men in red.

Walsh Park hasn’t had a happy homecoming for Waterford yet, losing to Clare, Wexford, and Kilkenny there since the redevelopment was completed. The Rebel support may even outnumber them along Keane’s Road this Sunday.

They may just be travelling back along the N25 the happier too.