Late Waterford surge blows the Rebels away to reach fifth final

Inside Track

With fifteen minutes gone in the second-half of Sunday’s slow-burning All-Ireland hurling semi-final between Cork and Waterford, it was difficult to avoid the conclusion that Galway would comfortably beat the pick of the two teams in September. By the end of the match, however, all bets were off.

Once Cork defender Damien Cahalane got his marching orders on a second yellow card in the 51th minute, this semi-final underwent a dramatic transformation as Waterford made hay in the extra space by outscoring the Munster champions by 3-8 to 0-5 from there to the finish. Their counter-attacking style and direct running had the Rebels in disarray as the Déise men qualified for only their fifth ever All-Ireland final.

The strong manner in which they finished and the high energy levels in Waterford’s ranks suggests that they would have carried the day in any event, but Cahalane’s sending off was a major turning point in front of another huge semi-final crowd of over 72,000. Cork quickly became dispirited and badly lost their way down the home stretch.

The bottom line is that their relatively young team didn’t possess Waterford’s experience. Furthermore, of their marquee players only Pat Horgan was in inspired form. His attacking colleagues Conor Lehane, Seamus Harnedy and Alan Cadogan, who was admittedly living off crumbs, never really fired against the packed opposition defence, while further out the field only young midfielder Darragh Fitzgibbon, for a period in the second-half, was making inroads.

In contrast, when the game was there to be won there was much more conviction about Waterford. Austin Gleeson, after a subdued opening 35 minutes, eventually caught fire and with Hurler of the Year contender Jamie Barron tearing up and down the field to devastating effect and Darragh Fives excelling in the sweeper role left vacant by the suspended Tadgh de Burca, they demolished the Rebels in the final quarter.

Mind you, there was little spectacular about Waterford or the match itself for almost 50 minutes. There wasn’t much fluency to the exchanges with among the few first-half highlights being an exhibition of point-taking by Horgan and the formidable Brick Walsh’s vital goal after a brilliant cross-field pass from the tireless Shane Bennett. The other big feature up to the interval was the influence of admirable Waterford captain Kevin Moran. His hard grafting and accurate shooting kept rallying his forces.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.