NHL Division 1A: Wexford 0-15 Kilkenny 2-17
A freezing cold evening at Wexford Park ended with an unusually warm feeling for the home support in the crowd of 4,561, considering their team had lost by eight points.
The second half, however had restored what was heading for a complete disaster by half-time at which point Kilkenny led by 12, 2-10 to 0-4. To say Wexford had been abject would be to spare the home side’s feelings.
Despite the fixture having regularly thrown up cliffhangers in recent times, this was always going to be one-way traffic such was the scale of Wexford’s personnel crisis in the aftermath of some heavyweight retirements and an infirmary’s worth of injuries.
All Star Diarmuid O’Keeffe, Matthew O’Hanlon and Liam McGovern all retired since last season, whereas another All Star Lee Chin has just returned to training, and Conor McDonald and Liam Ryan are injured.
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The resulting younger, largely inexperienced teams had been ravaged by Cork in the first round and comfortably held off in Thurles a week ago. Making bad worse were the early injuries to Simon Donohoe and Rory O’Connor.
Kilkenny were relatively seasoned, physically strong, and essentially dismantled Wexford with quick serviceable ball into attack and muscling them out of it at the back.
It had all started ominously with Kilkenny picking off scores clinically – four within the first five minutes from Billy Ryan, Mikey Carey, Cian Kenny and an Eoin Cody free – and never got any more riveting.
Cian Byrne landed a free to cut the margin to three but Wexford just didn’t look like posing a consistent scoring threat. It would be the 45th minute before Wexford scored from play.
This was partly due to Kilkenny’s iron grip around the middle third, where centre back Mikey Carey was in flying form, and was facilitated by a whole repertoire of mistakes in possession, alarming passes that flirted with disaster and frequently succumbed thereto.
One of the game’s form forwards Martin Keoghan maintained his scoring habit with two first-half goals, the first in the 23rd minute after a fine, driven delivery from the back by Paddy Deegan, won by Stephen Donnelly and laid off to Keoghan who rounded the cover and slammed it into the net. That made it 1-6 to 0-1.
Five minutes later it was Ryan providing the assist for the Tullaroan forward to get his second. By now a Cian Byrne free had doubled Wexford’s account but they would get to only 0-4 by half-time, thanks to goalkeeper Mark Fanning landing a couple of frees from his own half.
It could have been worse. Ryan rattled the goalframe with a long-range shot and could have had two but another chance was smothered by Wexford.
A second-half comeback seemed as remote as summer but in fairness to the home team they came out fighting and disrupted Kilkenny’s physical domination and contested the middle where Killian Doyle and Jordan Molloy had been dominant.
Byrne picked off the first two scores from frees and they would actually ‘win’ the second half 0-11 to 0-7. They also kept the Leinster champions scoreless for 14 minutes while Wexford fired over five points without reply, the pick of them a nicely hit lineball by Cathal Dunbar.
At its height the recovery hinted at sensation without ever quite getting there. Trailing by seven, 0-14 to 2-15, Wexford proceeded to commit four wides in as many minutes, the product of frenzied activity but frantic finishing. Eventually Kilkenny tidied up with a free by Eoin Cody and a concluding score from replacement Billy Drennan.
Wexford manager Keith Rossiter wasn’t sure whether to be impressed by the second half or appalled by the first.
“The first half, I can’t put it in the words I want ... but I wasn’t happy with it, I’ll put it that way to you. Lads would talk to you about stats but you didn’t need to see stats to tell you how bad the first half was.
“There was no fight and no drive, but in fairness to the lads they showed what they can do in the second half. They just took off the shackles and went at it. There’s positives from the second half we can build on but lots of negatives from the first half we need to talk about during the week.”
His counterpart Derek Lyng was relieved to have picked up a second win after the previous week’s home defeat to Galway but vexed that they had displayed un-Kilkenny tendencies in letting the opposition off the hook rather than turn their first-half superiority into a punishment beating.
“Wexford upped it a bit as we knew they would but we found it hard for spells. We picked off a few scores here and there but I wouldn’t be happy with the second half. But we’ll take a win in Wexford Park. We would have taken that before we came down.”
Lyng was asked about his own list of incapacitated players but was vague about their precise return dates.
“It’s hard to know it’s week to week but (by) Limerick (two weeks) or Cork (three weeks), hopefully we will have a few of them back for that but to be honest it’s too early to say. It really depends on how they get on in the next week or so.
“We have to be careful as well we don’t rush anyone back and someone suffers a breakdown with an injury and its trouble then for April, so we just have to be careful with one or two, particularly lads who have had niggles before, some lads have had injuries and hamstrings so we have to be mindful of that.”
WEXFORD: M Fanning (0-3f); E Ryan, C Foley, S Donohoe; C Dunbar (0-1), D Reck, R Lawlor (0-2); C McGuckin, C Hearne (0-1); D Codd, J Redmond, Cian Byrne (0-6f); C Flood, R O’Connor, C Byrne Dunbar. Subs: C Molloy for Donohoe (15 mins), Cillian Byrne for O’Connor (23), S Roche (0-1) for Codd (ht), S Casey (0-1) for Flood (51), J Byrne for Byrne Dunbar (68).
KILKENNY: A Tallis; M Butler, H Lawlor, S Murphy; D Blanchfield, M Carey (0-1), P Deegan; K Doyle, J Molloy (0-1); M Keoghan (2-0), C Kenny (0-3), B Ryan (0-2); S Donnelly, E Cody (0-8f), H Shine (0-1). Subs: B Drennan (0-1) for Donnelly, E Lyng for Keoghan (both 56 mins), P Connellan for Deegan (63), B Reid for Carey, N Shortall for Ryan (both 67).
Referee: L Gordon (Galway).
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