Waterford GAA Thread - Mod note post #1
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Limerick 1-18 Waterford 0-19
Fair dues to the Waterford hurlers for restoring the team’s pride and prestige last Sunday. Nonetheless, the hard-headed fact is that they passed up a gilt-edged opportunity to finally take Limerick down.
What was remarkable about the game was the variety of ways in which Waterford managed not to win the game. Let us start with the wides – 13 in all compared with just five for Limerick, two of which were struck from way out the field in the very last minute of added time when they were more concerned than anything else with getting the ball as far away from their own goal as possible. Of these 13 wides I would classify six of them as “bad” and two as “terrible” (both of the latter coming, uncharacteristically, from the stick of Dessie Hutchinson).
I have for years been calling here for the players to be coached on how to handle the wind when shooting for scores, before the game starts and at half-time. Last Sunday the wind was blowing across the pitch from the north (Ryan) stand, producing a tendency for shots at the country goal to go to the left of the posts and at the town goal to go to the right. In the first half, when Waterford were playing into the country goal, three of the four wides went to the left, and in the second half seven of the nine wides went to the right. That gives nine out of thirteen wides which failed to adjust adequately (or at all) for the wind (allowing for Patrick Fitzgerald’s late volley from close in which went on the wrong side of the post).
However, not all of Waterford’s missed chances were wides. There was Stephen Bennett’s missed close-in free in the 58th minute which was blocked, which Bennett then exacerbated with his late tackle on Diarmuid Byrne which gave Limerick a converted free well inside the Waterford half of the field – a two-point swing which was the difference between the teams at the end. There was another two-point swing in the 40th minute when Bennett was taking a free from just inside the Waterford half which was well inside his compass. However, instead of going for the point, he elected to send a crossfield ball to Dessie Hutchinson whose attempted pass inside was cut out by Limerick and worked up the field leading to another converted Limerick free.
Then, of course, there was Austin Gleeson’s kicked point which was cancelled due to Tom Barron’s rash challenge on the Limerick goalkeeper.
Next there were the Limerick scores which came directly from Waterford errors. Not for the first time when a Waterford team was under Davy Fitzgerald’s management, Waterford were poorly prepared mentally going into this game, as demonstrated in a litany of errors in the first 20 minutes (fumbles, running into trouble, misplaced passes, mishits). I counted twelve of these in this period, which led to no less than five Limerick points. This is not counting the concession of stupid frees, which yielded a further three points for Limerick.
Then there was the series of long balls sent into the Limerick goal area in the second half after Limerick had withdrawn their entire team outside the Waterford 45 metre line. While these did yield a couple of chances (Austin Gleeson’s kicked point and the close free which Stephen Bennett missed), it might have made more sense to work players into good positions to shoot for points from out the field, along the lines of Conor Gleeson’s excellent point in the 69th minute. I am reminded here of the way the Davy-managed Wexford team inexplicably abandoned the game plan which had given them what looked like a winning lead against Tipperary in the 2019 All-Ireland semi-final. Instead, they started sending high balls into the Tipperary goal area which provided Tipp with the means to rescue the game and go on to win a handy All-Ireland against a mediocre Kilkenny team.
On top of all this there was the inept performance of referee Liam Gordon and his umpires which bore down particularly heavily on Waterford. While I may be biased, I counted eleven cases of errors by Gordon which went against Waterford (either fouls on Waterford players which went unpunished or frees which were unjustifiably given against Waterford players). These included Aaron Gillane being in the square for the incident leading to the Limerick penalty; Kyle Hayes pulling both ways in the Limerick square after Jack Prendergast’s shot for goal had been stopped; Seamus Flanagan pulling Mark Fitzgerald down and getting a free for it; and Flanagan’s shoulder to Stephen Bennett’s head which the referee missed although I winced when I witnessed it from high up in the stand. Then just before the incident which led to Gearóid Hegarty getting his second yellow (which should have been a straight red) there was Barry Nash’s follow-through head contact to Jack Fagan which should have yielded a second yellow card for Nash but was not even penalised by the referee.
There was also an incident in the eighth minute when Aaron Gillane was not only standing almost on the goal line when a high ball came in, but pulled very carelessly striking Billy Nolan in the face, for which Nolan had to receive treatment. This was possibly a red card offence itself, but the referee gave no free for either the dangerous pull or the square ball. The Irish Times had a great photo of this incident which is reproduced here.
A person beside me in the stand commented after the game that Waterford had played a lot better after Tadhg de Búrca went off. This is definitely true, but it is hard to tell whether there was a link between the two. Perhaps the Waterford players were galvanised by the sight of de Búrca departing and raised their game as a result. It could also be that Waterford did better while playing without an out-and-out sweeper.
It is also a possibility that Limerick’s performance suffered from the departure of Declan Hannon in the 15th minute. Hannon is a crucial link in the normal Limerick plan of working the ball out from the back to create space in the midfield area from where players can shoot for a point or play good ball to the inside line. It was noticeable last Sunday that Limerick relied heavily on short puckouts the the full backs who then almost invariably sent low-trajectory ball to their half forwards. A key factor in Waterford gaining the upper hand was the ability of the half backs to prevent Cian Lynch and Gearóid Hegarty in particular from getting clean possession from these balls, with Jamie Barron also doing great work in sweeping up breaking ball in this area.
The exception, unfortunately, was Tom Morrissey, Morrissey is having a great year, and last Sunday he did more damage to Waterford than anyone else. He repeatedly received outballs from the Limerick full backs unchallenged, and also picked up ball, unmarked, all over the field. Davy Fitzgerald’s failure to address this problem is a major blot in his copybook. I kept asking myself during the game who was supposed to be marking Morrissey. Apparently it was supposed to be Darragh Lyons, but he certainly fell down big-time on the job. I am normally a fan of Lyons, but he had a poor day here, including numerous errors when he did get on the ball, and I was very surprised that Cárthach Daly was not brought on in his place.
An indication of how well Waterford did after they got to grips with the game is that, after falling eight points behind in the 21st minute, they outscored Limerick by 16 points to ten in the remainder of the game, despite all the missed chances. In total they had 38 shots on goal to Limerick’s 32, but were undermined by a 50% scoring return, to Limerick’s 59%. It is unknown these days for Limerick to get off fewer shots than the opposition, with their shot count normally in the 40s or more. This is a good indication of how well Waterford did in curbing the Shannonsiders on the day. Unfortunately, they failed on the other side of the account i.e. getting scores from their own possession.
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