Waterford GAA Thread - Mod note post #1

Cake Man

Any team news ahead of Sunday, anyone want to have a go at a predicted line up?

Not that it's any way important but probably a game we should win I would say. Certainly not a disaster if we lose given how seriously teams will likely take the league. Main thing would be to blood a few of the younger lads as well as getting game time into lads who have been injury plagued the last year or so (TdB, Barron, Iarlaith Daly).

TheScoringGoal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120190208#Comment_120190208

Very hard to call as Davy ruled out Prunty, Austin, Dessie and Jamie Barron and put Tadhg as doubtful. Yet all played some part against Wexford last Friday.

PTH2009

Looking forward to the game Sunday. Be nice to get the win but Dublin have a bit of a hoodoo over us. We haven't beaten them since 2017 in Croke Park with the last 2 meetings in Parnell Park been a defeat and draw

A loss would put us under pressure of getting to the Knockout stages

DiscoStew

Not exactly a big deal, but has the captain been formally announced? I heard that Stephen Bennett & Jamie Barron were appointed joint captains, but I can’t find anything official on that.

PTH2009

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-41063171.html

WATERFORD

Manager: Davy Fitzgerald (first season, second term).

New additions: Tipperary’s Eoin Kelly and Peter Queally are with Fitzgerald as selectors while strength and conditioning coach John Matthews is also on the ticket. Former Munster and Ireland star Donncha O’Callaghan has joined as performance coach.

Skipper: Conor Prunty was in the role for 2021 and 2022. This year’s captain has yet to be confirmed.

Unavailable: Former Waterford captain Pauric Mahony has retired. After much speculation, Stephen O'Keeffe confirmed he will not be rejoining the squad. Kieran and Shane Bennett are based in Australia for 2023.

Schedule: February 05, Dublin (h); February 11, Laois (a); February 26, Antrim (h); March 11, Tipperary (a); March 19, Kilkenny (h).

Making an impression: Earlier this month Padraig Fitzgerald hit 13 points for his club Kilrossanty to fire them to their first-ever county U20 hurling title. A day later he came on against Tipperary for his Waterford debut in the Munster Hurling League and hit 0-2. The forward started against Clare as well and scored 0-2.

Dalo's verdict: After last year, do Waterford have any interest in the league? On the other hand, Waterford’s championship last year was in synch with their dire record in their two previous years in the round robin in 2018 and 2019. Sorting out that issue will be Davy Fitzgerald’s biggest priority but, knowing him as a player and having managed him, Davy just wants to win everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if his attitude was, ‘Forget about what happened last spring, let’s just try and win this thing’. He will experiment but Tadgh de Burca’s good form allows him to try and settle on Aussie Gleeson closer to goal

Billy Ocean

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193520#Comment_120193520

Davy usually goes the joint captain route and its usually a forward and back, forward and midfielder wouldn't be way off the mark i suppose.

Cake Man

Didn't see it mentioned anywhere but SETU Waterford beat MTU Cork in the Fitzgibbon the other night and are now into the quarter finals against DCU in two weeks time. Great result considering they were well beaten by UCG in the first round and MTU Cork only needed to avoid defeat to get through. Reuben Halloran again cleaned up from frees. Jack Prendergast, Gavin Fives, Padraig Fitzgerald and Patrick Fitzgerald all played, amongst a few other Waterford lads. Shane Bennett also played in what sounds like is his last game before heading over here.

Iarlaith Daly also involved with UCC in their win over UCD.

TheScoringGoal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120194940#Comment_120194940

Jack Prender very good in the first half but for some reason, and this seems to happen with multiple managers, they moved him into the inside forward line in the second half and he was anonymous. He never plays as well there.

Iara seems to have come off after 20 mins last night so possibly a doubt for Sunday.

Mastermcgrath

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120194940#Comment_120194940

How is Shane Bennett still eligible for WIT even though he’s emigrating in a week? Just wondering

Cake Man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120195566#Comment_120195566

Was wondering the exact same thing myself, no idea. Also not sure why he’d be doing it in the middle of a semester either.

Mad about baa baas

Would it be possible he is going abroad as a work placement as part of his course? And therefore still a student

TheScoringGoal

I'm pretty sure he's doing a FAS course which makes him eligible to play.

Mastermcgrath

Just surprising to see him there considering it’s public knowledge he’s heading to Aus next week. surely he has agreed to stay on if they get to the latter stages of the competition.

decies

Team announced

JD. 60

So much for Injury concerns.

Strong panel on show there.

PTH2009

Nice to see some new names there

With the exception of TDB it looks like we're fully loaded

Venom69

Hopefully footballers can get an improved performance tomorrow evening!

Good to see some city players on panel /team from de la salle,roanmore ,St saviours.

A while since I've seen sliabh gcua players involved with Waterford footballers.

Mastermcgrath

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120198902#Comment_120198902

would like to see a few more fresh names in there. Aside from Halloran and Leavey it’s going with pretty much the same players that flopped last year

Jjjjjjjjbarry

Looking forward to this game now. Hope Tom Barron grabs his opportunity as he was in sensational form for FMW in last years club championship.

i still think our full back line is not good enough to stop Limerick but we’ll see who else gets a run out over the coming games. It’s definitely the area we need to tweak and try to sort out most, in my opinion. Would have maybe liked to see something different there for game 1 v Dublin.

Cant beat the first game excitement! I’m backing Davy and getting him on the crazy train 😋

Did I hear correctly that Fraher Field is limited to 3500 attendees?

Jjjjjjjjbarry

Also: I wonder will Davy put Bennett or Halloran on frees? I’m sensing that Davy has great belief in Halloran.

DiscoStew

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120200047#Comment_120200047

Attendance is capped at 3,600. I don’t expect it will be sold out either.

Giveitfong

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120199298#Comment_120199298

Mark Fitzgerald (whom I expect to be a championship starter) and Peter Hogan also missing.

This must be one of the strongest benches ever named by any county in a national senior competition. When you see the Examiner headline: “Davy Fitzgerald names strong-looking Waterford team”, it gives you an idea of how strong the Waterford panel is at the moment.

I can’t see many of the team starting in their named positions. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Darragh Lyons coming back into a sweeper role, or playing corner back with Iarlaith Daly (if he starts) doing the sweeping. Jamie Barron will surely be at midfield with Paddy Leavey. It would be very unusual to see Tom Barron playing in the forwards. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him swapping with Jack Fagan. It’s unlikely that Reuben Halloran will be at centre forward either.

TheScoringGoal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120200655#Comment_120200655

I was looking at this myself. Do you think we could see Jamie Barron in the inside forward line? Cahill tried him there a couple of times. I'd agree that wing forward seems a strange one. Tom definitely played a bit there and it could be a case of looking for that tall wing forward. Though I'd personally agree with you that I'd like to seem him and Jack Fagan swap.

Hogan and Mark Fitzgerald aside, how much stronger could that panel be? I can't think of anyone else that's missing that would definitely be in the 26. Billy Power, DJ, Colin Dunford could get in but none would be guaranteed a jersey.

decies

Article in todays Sunday times

PTH2009

Always love the real start to the season

Davy gave us some great/bad days in many different jerseys and lets hope he'll add more good days to them for his 2nd Term in charge.

Cork vs Limerick was a very good game tonight. Another Liam Cahill led team dished out a hammering too Laois also

Mastermcgrath

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120203853#Comment_120203853

Be very interested to see how Tipp go under Cahill. His man management skills are non existent as we know.

PTH2009

Best of luck to the team and management today

PTH2009

Very mixed half

Davy won't be happy

decies

Need the A team off bench . So far uninspiring . Crowd like a funeral here .

DeHorse88

Prunty in the horrors…full back line is not convincing, their going to have to try some new players in the full back line to see how comfortable they would be. Cathrach Daly could be better suited as a corner back.