ALLIANZ NHL DIVISION TWO/Wexford 1-18 Laois 1-14:IN THEIR hands!
Out of their hands!
Three still in it!
All to play for!
Nobody could accuse Division Two hurling of being predictable.
On this evidence, the only thing more important than preserving top-flight status in league hurling is achieving it.
So only in a fortnight’s time will the question of who joins Clare in the Division Two final – the last showdown for promotion – be answered. Wexford put one foot into that final here by beating Laois, and a lot more emphatically than the score suggests.
However, they’ll still need to beat Antrim in the last round to put the second foot in; Laois can still make it, too, if they beat Carlow (and Wexford lose); and Carlow can also make it if they beat Laois (and Wexford do no better than a draw).
Ah, the joys of league permutations. No wonder Wexford manager Colm Bonnar was being only cautiously optimistic about the consequences of this result – as important as it was to his team’s chances for promotion.
No wonder either that Laois manager Niall Rigney was so very disappointed, given the blow it was to his team’s chances.
“We can’t take our eye off Antrim, in Wexford Park, in two weeks,” said Bonnar, almost whispering in case anyone heard him. “Laois were second in the group, so this puts us automatically over them. But these last two games were always going to be the big two for us. We’ve won the one, one more to go.”
In the end, there could be little doubt which team here had the higher aspirations towards Division One hurling. Wexford were in control for long stages, particularly towards the end of the first half when they went eight points clear – and Laois went 22 minutes without a score.
Four Wexford points without reply at the start of the second half then pushed them 10 points clear, and it was really only a late flurry of scores from Laois – including a nicely-taken goal from comeback kid Zane Keenan – that spared the home team a thoroughly depressing afternoon.
“Sure we didn’t hurl at all, and we lost by four points,” said Rigney. “What will happen when we do hurl? The lads are very disappointed. And they should be. We didn’t take the game to Wexford.
“We waited for Wexford to dictate the pace of the game. We didn’t bring it to them until about 15 minutes to go. That’s not good enough at this level. The whole thing here is we allowed Wexford to come at us, when we spoke about going at them.”
At times, Wexford did hurl with the pace and confidence taken for granted not so long ago.
The full forward line of Rory Jacob, Stephen Banville and Peter Atkinson hit 1-8 between them, with Atkinson contributing the goal on 32 minutes after charging clear of the Laois defence.
Colm Farrell also gave them a nice grip at midfield – and chipped in with four nice points while he was at it – and Diarmuid Lyng did his part with the placed ball (the only downside being he was sent off, late on, on a second yellow card).
“Despite all the comments about us, I don’t think we’re going that badly,” added Bonnar. “We’ve done the hard work, and now is the time for the hurling to start.
“I am happy enough with the league so far, and now we know if we win our last game then we’re in the final. It’s still within our own hands.
“But we can improve a lot too. Laois scored 1-9 in the second half, put us under pressure, when we seemed to be coasting. So our work-rate still needs to improve in terms of closing down positions, and I suppose closing out games.”
Laois did improve in the second half, although that’s not saying much. Faced with a 10-point deficit, they finally took on Wexford at their own game, and chased and harassed for the ball, having previously sat back.
Eoin Costelloe and Joe Fitzpatrick hit the points while Willie Hyland hit the frees, and they finally got the goal they needed on 60 minutes when Keenan took a nice pass from John Delaney, and quickly buried it in the net.
For a player sidelined for the past 13 months, recovering from a broken leg, Keenan has lost none of the zest for the game, although obviously he’s lost a little practice.
All that was too late to impact on the result, however, as Wexford’s first-half performance ultimately saw them home. It could have been different, of course, had Laois played for the 70 minutes.
“It boiled down to the want of the player on the day,” added Rigney, “and it looked to me like our lads didn’t want it enough. Wexford were slicker. They were quicker. To the breaking ball they were faster.
“We set out at the start of the year to test ourselves against Wexford, Antrim, Clare. Were we competitive today for the 70 minutes? No. We were competitive for maybe the last 20. That’s the lesson they got.”
WEXFORD: N Carton; P Roche, E Doyle, K Rossiter; R Kehoe, D Stamp, C Kenny; M Molloy, C Farrell (0-4); A Shore (0-1), W Doran, D Lyng (0-4, two frees, two sidelines); R Jacob (0-3), S Banville (0-4), P Atkinson (1-1). Subs: E Quigley (0-1) for Doran (11 mins, inj), M Travers for Molloy (65 mins), T Waters for Atkinson (68 mins), T Mahon for Banville (70 mins).
LAOIS: E Reilly (0-1, a free); J Rowney, D Maher, C Healy; C Dunne, M Whelan, J A Delaney; M McEvoy, M Walsh; J Fitzpatrick (0-3), Z Keenan (1-2, one sideline, one free), W Hyland (0-5, four frees); T Fitzgerald (0-1), N Foyle, E Costelloe (0-2). Subs: E Holohan for Rowney (43 mins), J Prior for Dunne (45 mins), J Purcell for Foyle (54 mins), B Dunne for Costelloe (57).
Referee: G Duffy (Antrim).
