Waterford GAA Thread - Mod note post #1

No Rush ! The football championships have to start yet

No doubt Peter Quelly does a good job with whatever team he does take over. How many Waterford has he managed at this stage?

Patrick Curran was the best player on display in the 3 matches I saw. The move to the half forward line has really suited him as he can draft and pick up ball rather than the more confined inside line. He plays the position quite like Paidi Mahony does. I also felt he contributed when he came on against Limerick as Declan Hannon had to decide whether to come out and mark him or sit back. It will be interesting to see if he can nail down a similar role with Waterford. Credit to Dungarvan in general for a really hard working team performance summed up by Michael Kiely.

Austin scored well but to me doesn't seem to be moving entirely freely. He came in for some tough tackling from the Passage defenders throughout. Stephen Roche was exceptional in midfield. However it's very hard to see Mt Sion turn over Ballygunner.

Roanmore have a way of dragging teams into a dog fight and when that happens they are tough to beat. A couple of the bigger names in the Lismore team didn't fire either. Cathrach Daly caught the eye and it will hardly be long before he wears the senior county jersey.

Only for fellas can't hurl;)

massive weekend of games ahead

Friday 24th Sep 7pm Fraher Field- Senior Hurling Relagation game- De La Salle vs Ballysaggart

Sat 25th Sep 1.30pm Fraher Field- Senior Hurling Relagation game- Ballyduff Upper vs Clonea

Sat 25th Sep 4.30pm Walsh Park- Senior Hurling Semi Final- Ballygunner vs Mount Sion

Sun 26th Sep 1.30pm Walsh Park- Senior Hurling Semi Final- Roanmore vs Dungarvan

Sun 26th Sep 2pm Fraher Field- Western Junior (A) Final- Colligan vs Brickey Rangers (Due to the East A final been Mount Sion vs Roanmore, the winner of this game wins promotion to Intermediate and will represent Waterford in the Munster Junior Hurling Championship

Sun 26th Sep 3.30pm Fraher Field- Western Intermediate Final- An Rinn vs Modeligo

Sun 26th Sep 4.30pm Walsh Park- Eastern Intermediate Final- Ferrybank vs Dunhill

Sun 26th Sep 5.15pm WIT Arena- Eastern Junior (A) Final- Mount Sion vs Roanmore

My mix up

Surprised about Mount Sion not having an Intermediate team

Passage , abbyside , roanmore

Michael Kiely Dungarvan surely deserves a County Call up?

Shamrocks

Can’t say I’ve ever seen much of him but can’t rule a fella out from getting a trial cos he’s 27/28. He’s having an excellent Chanpionship not just 1 good game. He looks like a strong enough fella that can move. Would Cahill not even take a look at him?

Getting nice money to off Roanmore..

i dont understand why every team has to be about being senior and winning county, junior b is underrated not ever lad whants to eat rabbit food and train 10 times a week,more work needs to be done to allow for the casual player,junior b isn't a big enough grade

RIP Tom Kiely, played on Munster title winning Waterford teams, minor in 1992 and u21 1994.

While last weekend’s senior hurling qualifiers included two edge-of-the-seat one-point wins, we saw better hurling in the other two games. There was a lot of effort but little quality in the Mount Sion/Passage encounter. Sion probably should have won more comfortably, but two rather fortunate goals helped keep Passage in the contest. Mount Sion had the better individual contributors, with Stephen Roche providing excellent leadership, Austin Gleeson supplying a vital cutting edge and Luke O’Brien doing great work at the back. 

For me the most amazing moment of the game came in the last minute when, with Passage two points down and needing a goal to survive, Mikey Cummins got the ball in the clear about 30 metres out. However, instead of bringing the ball in and either going for a goal himself or passing to a team-mate free to his right, Cummins opted to tap the ball over the bar. The referee did allow one more passage of play which came to nothing, but it was still an extraordinary decision on Cummins’s part.

Roanmore were clearly the better team in their game against Lismore, who only managed to stay in touch through the goal-scoring heroics of Ray Barry, who ended up with a tally of 3-1. Roanmore made up for a lack of individual brilliance with a great work rate throughout the team, good organisation and a good game plan based on a combination of short passing and hard running. They seemed to win every ruck and breaking ball against listless opposition. And they did have one outstanding performer in Gavin O’Brien in midfield.

Lismore have a lot of players with great ability, but little of this was on show here. It looked to me that both Iarlaith Daly and Oisín O’Gorman were far from fit, while Jack Prendergast was also anonymous. It was probably a reflection on the rest of the team that half-time substitute and veteran Dan Shanahan was probably their best player in the second half. Apart from Ray Barry they did have an excellent performer in Cárthach Daly who showed great skill, pace and commitment playing in midfield and is surely destined for a place on the county senior panel.

Fourmilewater put in a great first half against Ballygunner. They worked very hard and very effectively to put their opponents under pressure and prevent them from putting their passing patterns together. This forced the Gunners into a lot of untypical errors. Unfortunately for FMW, they made a lot of basic mistakes themselves, with their first touch being poor at times. Still, they were good value for their one-point lead at half-time which would have been more were it not for the concession of a very soft goal to Kevin Mahony in the 16th minute.

While Ballygunner clearly raised their game after the interval, FMW were unable to maintain their first-half work rate. They were still hanging on, but two bad misses by Aaron Ryan in the 40th and 42nd minutes sucked the energy out of them.  Ballygunner seized on the opportunity to put the game to bed with seven unanswered points over the next ten minutes. During this period FMW just couldn’t get their hands on the ball as the Gunners combined their trademark passing movements with superb shooting.

For Ballygunner, veteran defenders Barry Coughlan and Shane O’Sullivan provided great stability in the face of the pressure exerted by FMW in the first half while Conor Sheahan put in a great hour at midfield. When their forwards got going, they simply had too much class in the shape of Peter Hogan, Pauric and Kevin Mahony and Dessie Hutchinson. For FMW, Tom O’Gorman produced a marvellous performance at full back.

The Fraher Field clash between Dungarvan and Abbeyside was the most eagerly awaited of the weekend, not only because of the local rivalry involved, but because these were the teams considered probably the most likely to put up a challenge to Ballygunner in the later stages of the competition. Unfortunately, it turned out to be something of a damp squib, with the Townies cantering to an easy victory in the final quarter.

Although Abbeyside started well, it quickly became clear that Dungarvan were the better team. They were working harder, their first touch was superior and they used the ball much more effectively. Their three county players – Patrick Curran, Darragh Lyons and Kieran Power – were all excellent, while their Abbeyside counterparts – Conor Prunty, Neil Montgomery and Michael Kiely – were largely ineffectual. In the early minutes, Kiely looked like he might win the game on his own, but his impact faded due to a combination of good Dungarvan defence and a poor supply of good ball. The return of Kieran Power was a big boost to Dungarvan as he produced his best performance for some time and was particularly prominent in the later stages as Abbeyside sought desperately to retrieve the game.

While it is difficult to identify a single Abbeyside player who had a good game (David Collins is a possible exception), Dungarvan had many other excellent individual performances from the likes of John Curran, Kenny Moore, Gavin Crotty and especially three-goal hero Michael Kiely. There were some raised eyebrows when Kiely moved from Touraneena to Dungarvan some years ago, and I think it would be fair to say that he never lived up to what were high expectations. He seems to be a different player this year, very good in his previous games and absolutely devastating here. On this form, a county call-up could be on the cards.

Yet, despite all this Dungarvan dominance, the game was still in the balance up to the 45th minute when only three points separated the sides. It was only when Patrick Curran smashed home his second penalty at this stage that the game was as good as over. Ultimately, the deciding factor in this game was the porosity of the Abbeyside full back line, from which four of Dungarvan’s five goals emanated. The irony here, of course, is that Abbeyside had the best full back in Ireland in their side, except he was out the field vainly chasing after Patrick Curran while the line behind him was going up in flames. I’m sure a lot of Abbeyside people are wondering what their team’s management were doing as this disaster unfolded before their eyes.

Lights gone in the Fraher field ...