Waterford’s fractured season to hamper them in the face of Wexford’s momentum

The last time this pair met in Nowlan Park, a crowd of 26,000 jammed in on a Saturday evening 11 years ago to the day.

The novelty of their first ever championship meeting made for a party atmosphere – a beach ball bounced around the stand beforehand, if memory serves – but that withered quickly enough for Waterford as an wizened Wexford side rolled to a 1-20 to 0-18 victory.

Although it’s certainly the case that Waterford bring more experience this time around, this is essentially two young teams in the early stages of their development.

How to compare and contrast depends on what you place the greater store in – the campaigns already in the bank for the likes of Brick Walsh, Kevin Moran, Noel Connors and Shane O’Sullivan; or this one, the first of the rest of these young Wexford players’ lives.

Waterford’s season has been fractured and bitty. A decent start to the league petered out into relegation. A phenomenal display against Cork was put back in its box in the replay. Even the win against Laois was no better than it should have been. It’s a bracing fact of life they haven’t won a game outside Walsh Park in 2014.

Going in here having played one game in six weeks can’t be great preparation for a game against a Wexford side that has had two wars on successive weekends during which to find their range.

50 scoring chances

Liam Dunne’s side have all the momentum. More pertinently, they have the forwards and a gameplan that created 50 scoring chances last Saturday against Clare.

Jack Guiney got his eye in finally last weekend and if he, Liam Óg McGovern and Conor McDonald can pick up where they left off, it should swing the pendulum Wexford's way.

WATERFORD: S O'Keeffe; S Fives, L Lawlor, N Connors; D Fives, K Moran, T de Burca; M Walsh, P Prendergast; S O'Sullivan, P Mahony, A Gleeson; C Dunford, S Walsh, J Dillon.
WEXFORD (probable): M Fanning; L Ryan, M O'Hanlon, K Rossiter; A Shore, E Moore, C Kenny; D Redmond, L Chin; P Morris, P Doran, D O'Keeffe; J Guiney, C McDonald, L Óg McGovern.
Referee: C Lyons (Cork).