Man-of-the-match Kevin Moran takes on Dublin’s Maurice O’Brien.
Waterford 4-13; Dublin 0-12
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The Waterford hurlers opened their Division 1 campaign with a comprehensive win over Anthony Daly’s Dublin in Walsh Park last Sunday. In truth, this was far easier than anyone could have anticipated as Dublin travelled with almost a full complement of players while Waterford were minus 10 first team regulars.
In fact the home side started with just six players who featured in the best-forgotten 2008 All-Ireland defeat to Kilkenny. However, if Davy Fitzgerald wanted to see how some of his fringe players got on against top-quality opposition he may have been slightly disappointed as Dublin never really got out of the traps and were duly swept aside by a Waterford side in which many players were fighting for positions for the weeks ahead.
The game itself was slightly over-shadowed by a serious injury to Dublin’s All Star midfielder Alan McCrabbe who appeared to suffer a broken leg after a collision with Jamie Nagle. This injury to Daly’s main man may prove far more detrimental to Dublin’s progress this season than the 13-point defeat to the Deise.
Waterford looked keen in the early stages and set about their business in an efficient no-nonsense manner. They led by 0-3 to 0-1 after 6 minutes thanks to a brace from Maurice Shanahan and a fine effort from Jamie Nagle. Then, in the seventh minute, Kevin Moran cut in from the right hand side before off-loading to Gary Hurney. Hurney turned on to his left hand side and fired an unstoppable shot to the back of the Dublin net.
It was a blow that Dublin never really recovered from and Waterford quickly added three more points, two of which came from the highly impressive Kevin Moran, who if he continues in this form will certainly nail down a regular starting slot in the half-forward line.
Dublin managed to cling to Waterford’s shirt tails, mainly due to the frees of McCrabbe. Although named as a corner forward, he roamed out around the middle of the field and prompted a similar reshuffle by Waterford. The net result of all this was that there was a free corner-back at either end of the pitch mopping up loose balls and clearing upfield.
See The Munster Express newspaper for full story.
