Preview: Electric Ireland MHC Final
Waterford manager James O'Connor. Photo by Matt Browne/Sportsfile
Saturday June 28
Electric Ireland MHC Final
Clare v Waterford, FBD Semple Stadium, 5.15pm, TG4
Referee: Colm McDonald
By Paul Keane
Between these two Munster rivals, they played Cork three times in this season's provincial championship and lost the lot.
So an Electric Ireland All-Ireland minor hurling championship final meeting between the two teams wasn't necessarily anticipated, not by those outside of their respective camps anyway.
Both counties lost to Cork in the provincial round robin and Cork got the better of Waterford again in the Munster final in mid-May.
Throw in Clare's six-point round robin defeat to Waterford - significant in the context of this weekend's rematch - and that's four losses between the two sides before they'd even exited the province.
Clare manager Ger O'Connell has spoken of how the Banner approached the All-Ireland series as a brand new competition.
For the preliminary quarter-final against Dublin they changed a quarter of the team, won that game by 2-20 to 0-13 and kicked on from there with huge wins over Tipp and old rivals Cork.
All three of those All-Ireland series wins for Clare were in Thurles, so they will be happy to return there for the final on Saturday evening.
Waterford are more than comfortable there too having played three of their seven games this season at the Tipperary venue.
The Deise last won this title in 2013, overcoming Galway with a team that contained future senior finalists Austin Gleeson, Patrick Curran and Stephen Bennett.
Ballygunner's Cormac Spain has been their prolific scorer this time, reaching the final with a whopping 8-63 to his credit. He is part of a physically powerful Waterford side that has displayed its strong character time again.
Manager James O'Connor, for instance, described the last 15 minutes they put in against Clare in the round robin as 'heroic stuff', when they came from a goal down to win by 1-21 to 1-15.
They were level nine times in that game with Jack Power underlining his aerial ability with a series of terrific catches throughout the middle third for Waterford.
Paul Rodgers, younger brother of Clare senior and reigning All-Star Mark, has been operating at the sharpened point of his team's attack, registering 2-60 so far from six starts.
Liam Murphy's goal-scoring threat is evident for Clare also - he netted against Galway, Dublin and Cork - while the defence has been expertly led by the powerful Dara Kennedy, Evan Crimmins and Jack O'Halloran.
