The way the season has progressed in Munster, this is a key game and probably more important than Tipperary and Cork last week because both teams have already lost matches and can’t realistically afford to drop more points here.
Clare bounced back from their Tipperary defeat to go down the Ennis Road and slay the Limerick dragon. They come into this in good form. I find it hard however to discern any identifiable pattern in Waterford’s performance against Cork.
Even their best spells are marked more by individual feats than the imposition of a coherent gameplan.
Maybe it wasn’t quite as good a performance as it seemed at the time. Limerick were down to 14 men for most of the second half and may well have been underestimating their opponents anyway
Davy Fitzgerald pointed to their shooting accuracy letting them down the first day against Limerick but struggled to explain the second day. The fall-off was so great after the opening match that there has to be some explanation.
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Maybe it wasn’t quite as good a performance as it seemed at the time. Limerick were down to 14 men for most of the second half and may well have been underestimating their opponents anyway.
Waterford went into Thurles written off and had the luxury of nothing to lose taking on the champions.
A week later and they went to Cork, fancied or at least given a chance on the basis of their first performance. So Waterford were rated as being back in some sort of form but from the start, Cork dismantled them.
Darragh Fitzgibbon was granted the freedom of Páirc Uí Chaoimh and let loose whereas seven days ago we didn’t see much of him against Tipperary. Waterford were against the wind but it was hardly strong enough to explain the lack of scoring chances created.
They drove some very bad wides and were never in the game and looked peripheral throughout the contest. Disjointed. It left them with big questions to answer.
Tactically, the use of Jack Fagan as replacement for Tadhg de Búrca was strange because he has no great experience of the role — and that was where a lot of the damage was done, as they never got to grips with Cork in the half-back line.
You couldn’t even argue that having only a week to recover from the Limerick match fatigued them because both Clare and Limerick were operating off a six-day turnaround that weekend and both went up the gears appreciably.
I think this is a big ask for Waterford even though they will probably have Austin Gleeson back, as he is named to start. They’re not firing the enthusiasm of the supporters and have to get something from an in-form Clare.
Take away the self-inflicted goals against Tipperary and you have a team that has scored a lot
Since the change of goalkeeper after the Tipperary match and the return of David Fitzgerald, Brian Lohan’s men are for me the most impressive team in the Munster championship to date.
Take away the self-inflicted goals against Tipperary and you have a team that has scored a lot. John Conlon has been in the sort of form that reminds you of what a loss he was before last year’s All-Ireland semi-final. Diarmuid Ryan has located his “A” game and Fitzgerald had a huge performance on his return against Limerick. Aidan McCarthy has been close to the player of the championship so far and they have danger lurking in Shane O’Donnell and Mark Rodgers.
It also says a lot that this list of names doesn’t even include Tony Kelly, who against Limerick gave notice that he was coming back to his best after a difficult league.
Over the years there hasn’t been much love lost between the managers so it’s hard to imagine Clare under-performing in this game.
As a footnote to last week, we move from the cut-throat world of Munster hurling with everything fought for, tooth and nail in matches so far, to Leinster where there has been little tension and results like Westmeath getting beaten by 34 points.
It’s funny how the Cork-Tipp draw in Munster injected more jeopardy into the championship
You wonder what it does for them in the long run and how they felt turning up for training during the week. I know that they have had injury difficulties and earned their place last year but this time around, Galway and Kilkenny are pulling away from the rest.
It’s funny how the Cork-Tipp draw in Munster injected more jeopardy into the championship but in Leinster when Kilkenny and Galway drew, they simply copper-fastened their dominance after a match that was low-intensity because both knew they would have bigger days to come.
Leinster again swings on the Dublin-Wexford match and although Wexford will say that they beat Kilkenny in Nowlan Park last year to qualify, I find it hard to envisage a repeat on the evidence we’ve seen so far.
