Doyle and Wexford not prepared to settle for second best

Galway 1-19 Wexford 1-21

Wexford manager JJ Doyle insists the Model County will start as rank outsiders against under-21 hurling champions Clare at Semple Stadium when the teams meet in the final on on September 13th.

The Banner County will be aiming to clinch a third successive crown but, after a titanic battle with Galway in Thurles, where they prevailed by two points in front of 6,853 spectators, Wexford will be standing in Clare's way.

Twelve months on from a shock semi-final defeat to Antrim, Doyle knows his side will be the underdogs and has urged them not to falter this time round.

“Please God, we can not settle for this being our lot for the year,” he said on Saturday evening. “We want to really drive on now and nobody’s going to give us a hope in hell against Clare. But listen, it really doesn’t matter what other people think, it’s what we think ourselves. We won’t just turn up to make up the numbers on the 13th - we’ll be there to try and win it.

“We haven’t won anything yet but it is very pleasing to get over the line, especially after what happened last year.”

Jack Guiney hit 1-8 for the winners on a night when the Leinster champions had scoring contributions from seven players, including three-point hauls from Gary Moore, Kevin Foley and Conor McDonald.

Guiney and Galway’s Pádraic Brehony, scorer of 1-6 from play, trading goals in a first half that was level seven times.

At the break, Galway led by 1-14 to 1-13 and seven unanswered points before and after half-time opened up a 1-17 to 1-13 advantage early in the second half.

But Galway registered seven wides after the break and would only manage two further points for the remainder of the game.

That allowed Wexford to work their way back into contention and while the sides were level three times in the second period, late points from Guiney (two) and Moore sent the Slaneysiders through to a first final since 2001.

Galway boss Johnnie Kelly struggled to hold back tears as he praised the efforts of his players.

He said: “It was a great game. Look, Jesus, I don’t want to be knocking anyone but we did have a lot of wides (in the second half). But you know, the effort was there. We put in everything to this. We knew this was a good team from Wexford but I suppose the wides cost us, yeah.”

GALWAY: S Mannion; D O'Donoghue, J Hanbury, P Killeen; B Keane, D Higgins, A Tuohy (0-1); C Diviney, E Burke (0-1); P Brehony (1-6), S Maloney (0-6, 3f), C Mannion (0-3); D Dolan, J Glynn (0-1), J Flynn.

Subs: B Molloy (0-1) for Dolan (23), E Brannigan for Diviney (47), J Carr for Flynn (56).

WEXFORD: O O'Leary; G Foley, L Ryan, E Conroy; A Kenny, S O'Gorman, J O'Connor; A Nolan (0-1), C Devitt (0-1); J Guiney (1-8, 0-7f), G Moore (0-3), P Foley (0-2); R Clarke, C McDonald (0-3), K Foley (0-3).

Subs: J White for G Foley (36), P Sutton for Clarke (44), S Cash for Devitt (51), C O'Leary for P Foley (54).

Referee: D Kirwan (Cork).