Munster SFC: Early goals ease Limerick past Waterford

Limerick’s Cillian Fahy celebrates after scoring a goal against Waterford. ©INPHO/Ken Sutton.

Limerick 2-14
Waterford 0-9

Limerick moved comfortably into the semi-finals of the Munster senior football championship tonight at Waterford’s expense.

First-half goals from Cillian Fahy and Adrian Enright in Dungarvan saw the Treaty men control this contest as they led by seven points at the half and finished the contest with 11 to spare.

Limerick led from the fourth minute onwards once Fahy hit the Waterford net and never looked in danger of losing out on a berth in the last four of the southern province once Enright repeated the trick.

Conor Murray’s point had Waterford up and running inside the opening minute of this quarter-final, before the visitors responded in the most emphatic fashion three minutes later.

After getting threaded through the home side’s defence, Fahy hammered in a superb goal that surged the Division 4 champions into a lead they wouldn’t surrender the entire night.

Iain Corbett landed Limerick’s first point two minutes later and Adare’s Hugh Bourke sent over another with the aid of the breeze, as they strung together four points unanswered before delivering a second hammer blow to the hosts.

This time wing forward Enright provided the cool finish that had the scoreboard reading 2-4 to 0-1 in Limerick’s favour after 16 minutes.

Murray struck his second point to stop the rot for Waterford on the eve of the water break, with Corbett firing over a score afterwards that ended a drought in for the Shannonsiders.

Jason Curry and Darragh Corcoran raised white flags to keep the Deise fight alive, as they trailed at the halfway stage by 2-5 to 0-4.

Limerick’s Sean McSweeney steals possession from Waterford’s Robbie Flynn. ©INPHO/Ken Sutton.

Billy Lee’s charges kicked the first four points of the resumption to open up the nine-point gap again, as Waterford would have to wait 20 minutes into the second-half until Dylan Guiry broke their scoring drought.

Shane Aherne pulled back another for the Deise but the game was well and truly beyond them by the second water break with a margin that was too wide much to make up.

Limerick finished with nine different scorers over the 70 minutes as they continued their winning trend to march towards a Munster semi-final date against either Clare and Tipperary next Saturday.

Limerick – D O’Sullivan; S O’Dea, B Fanning, P Maher; T McCarthy (0-1), K Ryan (0-1), G Brown (0-1); D Treacy, T Childs; A Enright (1-0), I Corbett (0-1), C Fahy (1-1); S McSweeney (0-2, 1f), T Griffin, H Bourke (0-4, 2f). Subs: C Sheehan for T Childs (54mins), S O’Carroll (0-1) for Griffin (54), M Donovan for Brown (63), R Childs for T McCarthy (63), D Lyons (0-1) for McSweeney (68).

Waterford – A Beresford; D Ryan, D Ó Cathasaigh, W Hahessy; S O’Donovan, T Grey (0-1), R Flynn; M Curry, S Aherne (0-1, 1f); J Mullaney, D Corcoran (0-1), B Looby; D Guiry (0-1), J Curry (0-3, 2f), C Murray (0-2). Subs: R Reddy for Flynn (27), F O Cuirrin for Mullaney (54), M Cummins for Corcoran (54), J Beresford for Aherne (68), J Walsh for Grey (71).

Ref: B Crawley (Kildare)