"Never happy in defeat but..." - Laois hurling Maher boss gives take on Waterford tussle

Laois Senior hurling manager, Willie Maher, has watched his side battle hard twice but ultimately fall to two double-digit defeats in the first two rounds of this year’s league campaign.

Maher was happy with his side’s display for the first fifty minutes of the match against Waterford, but ultimately Aidan Corby’s second half red card proved too costly for Laois. Maher spoke to the media after the match and expressed his thoughts on the crucial incident.

“It was massive. Looking back on it, I didn’t really think it was a red card. It was probably a little bit mistimed. I think it happened directly in front of the Waterford dug out which probably didn’t help the situation. It was probably similar to Stephen Bennett’s last week against Dublin.”

Laois matched Waterford for the first 50 minutes of the game until Corby received his marching orders from Sean Stack.

“Our lads ultimately ran out of gas in the end. We’re very, very content with fifty minutes of good work tonight. We got to that fifty-minute mark. The match was lost, ultimately, on that Aidan Corby incident. That’s high-level hurling. Waterford are a fantastic team.”

Maher felt Laois had to be ruthless in front of the posts to have any chance against a team like Waterford. Ryan Mullaney and Fiachra C Fennell both squandered massive goal chances in the second half that could have made the final scoreline much closer.

“Look, the execution was poor, but I think the fact that Fiachra (C Fennell) did get in that far showed he’s a really good player. Big chance to miss and you need to score everything when you’re playing the big teams.

“We missed a bad chance after half-time. Ryan (Mullaney) got through for a third chance. He bagged two, in fairness to him. We needed every score to go over or into the net. That didn’t happen.”

While Maher was upset Laois failed to get a result, the Laois Senior hurling manager highlighted some of the positives his team can take into the Kilkenny showdown in two weeks’ time.

“I’m never happy in defeat but, at the same time, I think the lads showed something tonight and got something out of the Waterford players, particularly in the first half. We used our puck-out relatively well. We closed them down and caused them to stop around the 65’ yard line which was really good from our perspective. Again, the quality of the teams were playing with Tipperary last week, Waterford this week, Kilkenny in two weeks, it’s a complete step up to this Laois group at the moment.”

Laois have a week break before facing Kilkenny in Laois Hire O’Moore Park on February, 26.