Superb.
Wonderful scenes.
Congratulations lads. Delighted for the likes of the Count of Monte Cristo. Less thrilled for the likes of Croppy Boy.
Fuck Louth. Fans are wankers, booing Ben Brosnan on the last free.whining about mastersons kick outs. Fuck them.
Good day, report to follow.
Also nice to see Gman escape the clutches of his overbearing antipodean in laws.
The victory was magnificent but the pre-match chat with Gman was my personal highlight.
Good win for Wexford. Seems like they nearly threw it away though.
How ridiculous was the capacity restriction? Loads of space on the banks on three sides of the ground. A whole section of the stand empty too given the warm weather.
My half time chat with Gman also a highlight.
Disappointed that I didn’tget the opportunity to meet Bandage but you can’t have it all…
Just past Croke Park. The Leinster double is on, boys. We’ll be collecting trophies in there next month.
So Wexford have to beat Louth and Meath/Wicklow to reach a Leinster final.
Fucking scandalous having such an easy route to a Provincial final.
What a win. Delighted to beat those jeering cunts on their home patch.
And to catch up with bandage, and then count, great day! It did fall off a bit when I met croppy boy, but I won’t let that dampen my mood.
I fucking love my county! Up Wexford!
The Wexford footballers have been great value over the last 10 years or so. They’re literally capable (and not Jamie Redknapp literally) of winning or losing to anybody on any given day (except Kilkenny and Leitrim). Smashing victory today - it took a monumental effort to emerge with the win.
Ciarán Lyng’s goal was as good as you’ll see. He absolutely arrowed the ball into the bottom corner with a little touch of swerve from 25 yards after powering onto a Banville lay off at pace. 1-3 for him in the first half, 1-2 from play.
It seemed like a reasonable decision for us to play with the wind in the first half - they were coming in with momentum on the back of a 10-point first round win so I don’t think it would have been wise to let an already confident team kick on with aid of a really strong breeze.
That said, it was ominous when they scored the early goal playing against the elements to go 1-1 to 0-2 up. They were constantly looking for the diagonal high ball into Lennon and, in fairness, he caught and finished excellently from one such pass. However, Molloy gradually wore him down and defended very well as the game progressed.
We could have had more scores on the board at half time, even though a 1-10 to 1-5 lead was relatively healthy. Lyng’s goal had made it 1-8 to 1-4, if I recall correctly, after it had been nip and tuck up to then. We had a decent spread of scorers in the first half but there were a few speculative efforts where the option to shoot was questionable given better placed colleagues.
Louth were seething about two decisions either side of half time. Firstly, their corner forward was done for overcarrying when surging through on the stroke of half time. Chin, who had already been booked, had dragged him down almost at the same time as the ref blew for it. He gave a free in straight after half time when the wing forward broke a tackle and popped it across for someone to palm into the goal (Wexford may have stopped after the whistle for this one though).
Waters had another magnificent game in midfield until getting a head injury going up for a kick-out midway through the second half and Quinlivan also won more than his share of possession there (but his distribution was slack at times). I think Waters is the best midfield player in world gaelic football.
Credit to Paddy Byrne for plucking that last kick-out from the sky. He also kicked over a crucial point late on too. Before that, our second goal was a little fortunate with Lyng finding Roche with the outside of his foot and the latter’s point attempt coming back off the post and straight into Banville’s hands to finish.
I think all our forwards scored from play and 2-13 was a good tally to rack up with Barry well held by Finnegan (within the laws of the game) and Brosnan (well held by their number 2 every time he tried to move and offered no protection). There was actually a serious amount of late hits after the ball was delivered and fouling off the ball by Louth today.
But Brosnan was faultless from frees - he kicked a great one from around 55 yards off the ground in the first half with the wind advantage but his, and our, last point was a sublime strike off the ground into the breeze under severe pressure.
A great win though, especially with them pressing very hard at the end. But I think we’ve better players than them and it was a deserved victory overall.
Are we out the next 5 weeks in a row now between hurling and football, lads?
Who should be out the weekend of the 22nd? Qualifiers or Leinster semi for the Hurlers is it?
Certainly looks that way. Time to start filling the old outlook calendar with “out of the office meetings” for the next few weeks.
Hurling QF replay
Hurling SF
Football SF
Hurling F
Football F
- Dublin in Parnell Park next Saturday.
- Kilkenny on the 23rd when we beat Dublin.
- Wicklow in Croke Park on the 30th in a double header with Dublin-Kildare.
- I’m guessing the Leinster Hurling Final is on the 7th July where we’ll dethrone Galway.
- Leinster Football Final on the 14th and what better way to celebrate our win over Kildare than heading down to Damien Dempsey in Iveagh Gardens that night.
Good summary Bandage. Only just home now. Some cunt of a drive. Although I pity the bastards on the way back to Dublin from the sunny south east, traffic jam pretty much from before the Arklow bypass finishes up until the Rathnew bypass and again around Kilmacanogue into Dublin.
Anyway, my own take on it would be similar enough to Bandage. Thought the full back line did well, and Louth were a bit naive not taking advantage of Chin at the start of the second half. On a yellow, and not being great defensively, they didnt really target him after that. He did well though, I thought he’d see a second yellow as he was struggling. Molloy did well after the goal. Pretty much kept Lennon quiet after that. Furlong did a lot of work and used the ball well. Half back line was solid, but maybe not incisive enough going forward. Midfield did well, both of them. Competed well and won a lot of ball, or broke it. Linked up well in general play too.
There is a lot more in the forwards. They all did ok in spells, but in the main, bar Lyng, were ineffective in large parts. But yet all contributed and did something. A bit more consistency in what they can do and we have another level to go up. That goal by Lyng was fantastic. It wasnt on at all, but he just rattled it.
Subs contributed well, Paddy Byrne in particular. Roche did well too, and Tierney did what he had to do as well. Gore though. bloody hell. 2 possessions, 2 turnovers. could have really really cost us.
They got awful ratty and negative around the same time the crowd started their booing and jeering shit, and they lost composure. Started hitting in aimless balls and doing lots of fouling off the ball.
As good as it was to meet my TFK brethren today, I still think the main highlight was the gobshite steward who was chasing a loose hare that got into the pitch enclosure. The fucking idiot, about 45 and overweight, was sprinting after this hare as it ran down the pitch, and he kept running after it. And when the hare turned and he tried turn, he slipped and fell on his arse. Hilarious stuff from the simpleton Louth native.
I’m repeating myself again but their number 6 stole forward untracked to play the pass to Lennon for the goal and he also set up a couple of points. Lyng started centre forward and didn’t really track him back at all. We still need to tackle and work harder from the front to offer more protection for our defence. In fairness, Lyng improved this aspect as the game went on even when he had spells playing in the full forward line. And it’s probably a bit out of order to mention it after the goal he scored too. We do have some excellent scoring forwards but we need them all to do the dirty side also as we tend to concede a fair bit.
A very good interception by Rob Tierney actually from Gore’s initial turnover. In fairness, the second time he coughed up the ball he managed to retrieve it and toe chip it to another Wexford player. All in all, I think he did enough to get a start the next day. Brendan Mulligan wasn’t involved in the match day 26 and joined the small Sarsfields enclave on the bank. But that was 3 Sarsfields players in the squad today and another on the extended panel. A club that was largely ignored during the Jason Ryan era. Oh to have had Aidan O’Brien in charge when we had players like Forde, Morris and Bradley (and all the Sarsfields players) available.