GAELIC GAMES:ONE OF the biggest weeks in Wexford GAA gets under way this evening with the county's under-21s taking on Kilkenny in Wexford Park, just four days before the counties meet again in the Leinster semi-final on a senior championship double bill at the venue, with the Wexford footballers facing Westmeath in a provincial quarter-final.
The hurling match on Saturday is historic given it is 62 years since Wexford faced Kilkenny in a championship encounter at their home venue in Wexford Park, which the visitors won before going on to lose the Leinster final to Laois.
It is also the first time in three years the counties have met in the championship, the most recent encounter a chastening Leinster final in which Wexford were beaten by 19 points.
The landscape has changed since then.
Kilkenny have had a difficult nine months, losing last year’s All-Ireland five-in-a-row attempt to Tipperary and more shockingly, taking a 12-point drubbing from Dublin in last month’s league final.
Wexford, faced with the impossible looking task of taking three points from their last two league matches against Cork and Tipperary managed to do so and escape the relegation that had appeared certain when they lost to fellow strugglers Offaly.
“It’s very intriguing that we haven’t met them for three years,” according to manager Colm Bonnar. “In that time Kilkenny have won two All-Irelands and reached last year’s final. Now they’re in the unusual position for them of not being All-Ireland champions and having to come back after some bad press, which again is unusual for them, after losing the league final.
“One game doesn’t make them a bad team and we’d be aware of the ease with which they beat Dublin, Cork and Galway last year.”
He is emphatic that survival in the top flight of the league was imperative for the team, citing the difficulty of raising a team’s game between a spring hurling in Division Two and the intensity of the championship.
“When I came in (three years ago) Wexford had just been relegated to Division Two. We had a reasonable campaign but got turned over by Offaly in the final before getting promotion last year. But hurling in the lower division didn’t help us and we were badly beaten by Galway and Tipperary – admittedly that was an unlucky draw for our first two games.
“This year has been totally different. Every game has been a huge pressure game for us. We were down 12 or 13 players for the first outing against Galway and were well beaten. But there was steady improvement afterwards. We scored only 0-6 against Galway, then 0-13, 0-17 and 1-18 against Cork.
“We made serious progress and upped the scoring rate. Everything and everyone were tested to the limit: our link play, the speed of our game – everything was looked at in greater detail and players gradually got up to the pace of the game. I think the ability to maintain intensity is one of the reasons we beat Antrim.
“The trouble with Division Two is that you go from winning by 20 points and not learning very much to losing a match and not knowing where you are because the next time out you win by 20 again. If we hadn’t stayed in Division One we mightn’t have seen all of the players coming back for next season.”
Wexford have injury concerns about Oulart pair Darren Stamp and Paul Roche. Stamp had come back after recovering from a stress fracture in his hand to play in the provincial first round against Antrim and came through without aggravating the problem. Two days later at training he pulled a calf muscle and hasn’t trained since and is a worry for Saturday.
Corner back Roche is also recovering from a calf injury, which he aggravated in training last Thursday and is currently undergoing intensive physiotherapy treatment and cryotherapy.
Garrett Sinnott, who was injured in the final-day league draw with Tipperary that preserved the county’s Division One status, is back in training but Eoin Quigley had to go off at the weekend while playing for his club Sarsfields in Cork after sustaining a dead leg. Quigley was just back after a hamstring injury that kept him out of the Tipperary league match.
Tonight’s under-21 semi-final sees 10 of the Wexford team which lost last year’s Leinster final to Dublin back for this summer’s championship.
The side is big, physically strong and features half a dozen of the players who brought the county its first football success at the grade during the spring before losing the All-Ireland semi-final to Cavan.
Kilkenny, though, will be formidable opponents, having won two of the last three All-Ireland minor titles and reached the final in 2009. Their team is composed of players from those sides.
WEXFORD (U-21 v Kilkenny): M Fanning; W Devereux, M O’Hanlon, E Moore; M O’Regan, A Shore, S Murphy; E Kent, H Kehoe; S Tomkins, J Leacy, L McGovern; P Morris, J Breen, P Doran.
KILKENNY (U-21 v Wexford): D Walsh; I Duggan, M Walsh, A Moran; J Callinan, R Doyle, C Fogarty; J Lyng, O Walsh; T Breen, C Kenny, E Murphy; G Aylward, W Walsh, J Brennan.
THE Ulster Council have announced that both of the provincial football semi-finals, on 19th and 26th June, as well as the final on 17th July will be played in St Tiernach’s Park, Clones.
