Oulart’s shock demise adds to Wexford hurling’s woes

Inside Track with John McIntyre

Wexford hurling needed what happed at Nowlan Park last Sunday like a hole in the head. A disastrous and demoralising defeat for their county champions in the provincial club decider underlined the ongoing crisis in one of the sport’s traditional strongholds.

This was supposed to be Oulart-the-Ballagh’s day of redemption after three consecutive Leinster final defeats. They appeared to have much of the hard work done in defeating Kilkenny title holders Clara before dethroning Kilcormac of Offaly, but once again they were found wanting and suffered a loss of nerve in their bogey fixture.

With nearly half the Wexford team in their ranks, including the established quartet of Keith Rossiter, David Redmond, Garrett Sinnott and Rory Jacob, Outlart have been one of the country’s most prominent clubs over the past few years, but they will now be perceived as serial losers and being unable to cope with the pressures of big day hurling.

Frankly, it’s difficult to dispute that opinion. Last Sunday was psychologically their worst Leinster final defeat of all. Facing a team from the minnows hurling county of Carlow and one which was experiencing such an occasion for the first time, Martin Storey’s men still couldn’t close the deal and the frustrated body language of their players coming towards the end told its own tale.

The Oulart team seemed overcome by their previous final demons as the match evolved. A series of poor misses and several under-hit shots into opposition goalkeeper Frank Foley in the opening 20 minutes unsettled them and prevented the Wexford champions from reflecting early dominance on the scoreboard. And the longer Mount Leinster Rangers stayed in their slipsteam, they more rattled Oulart became.

They had no shortage of possession or territory, but lacked sufficient guile and composure. The baggage of previous final disappointments was plain to see, but you still imagined that Oulart’s greater experience, firepower and skill would eventually get them over the line, especially when they went three points clear early in the second half.

Instead, it was the hard-toiling Carlow men who came up with the answers. Physical, fit and dogged, they competed with admirable tenacity for the breaking ball and also possessed a reliable free-taker in Denis Murphy who accounted for their meagre opening half tally of three points – a haul which still only left them two behind at the break.

There was no shortage of commitment from Oulart either, but their attack couldn’t engineer sufficient space to create scores and also began to run out of ideas. Mount Leinster were strong in the air, enabling them to secure loads of primary possession and last year’s All-Ireland intermediate champions were displaying the greater conviction heading into the home straight. The exchanges remained frantic, but the Carlow men could now smell blood and their overall work ethic really began to unsettle the strong pre-match favourites.

 For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.