NATIONAL HURLING LEAGUE/Division 1 B - Wexford ... 1-14 Limerick ... 0-8: This was an exercise in putting consecutive defeats behind them but it was Wexford who arrested the tide with a fully merited victory at Wexford Park yesterday.
The past few weeks for Limerick have been dominated by controversy and they showed little sign of ending their barren spell in one of their worst displays for many seasons.
Limerick have now lost four consecutive games and any hope they had of emerging out of the relegation battle disappeared after this outing. Their performance can best be summed up by 17 wides, 13 in the first half, and just a meagre five points from play.
Wexford deserve every credit for bouncing back from their demoralising defeat to Tipperary seven days earlier. They hurled with tenacity as Paul Codd regularly hit the target from frees while also setting up scores for his younger colleagues.
While Limerick were lifeless during the opening half Wexford built a 0-5 to 0-1 lead, with four points coming from Codd frees and the other through centre forward Donal Berry after Donncha Sheehan had opened the scoring with a Limerick point after two minutes. Mark Keane added a point for Limerick to leave Wexford with a 0-5 to 0-2 interval lead.
Wexford increased their lead to 0-10 to 0-6 and after 24 minutes their goal arrived. Adrian Fenlon drilled a long ball into corner forward Chris McGrath, who left his marker Damian Reale for dead before knocking the ball over the head of goalkeeper Timmy Houlihan and tapping the ball into an unguarded net.
The final scoreline looked even better than Wexford could have expected as they finished with points from Rory Jacob, Mitch Jordan, Barry Goff and Codd, while Limerick's meagre reply was two Conor Fitzgerald points.
WEXFORD: D Fitzhenry; D Guiney, D O'Connor, R Mallon; K Furlong, L Dunne, M O'Leary; A Fenlon, R McCarthy; T Kelly, D Berry (0-1), B Goff (0-2); P Codd (0-8, 7 frees), A O'Leary, C McGrath (1-1). Subs: M.J. Furlong for A O'Leary; R Jacob (0-1) for Berry; M Jordan (0-1) for Kelly; B. Lambert for Goff.
LIMERICK: T Houlihan; D Reale, E Mulcahy, S McDonagh; C Smith, B Geary, M Foley; P Lawlor, E Foley (0-1); C Fitzgerald (0-3), TJ Ryan, B Foley; D Sheehan (0-1), B Begley, M Keane (0-3, frees). Subs: P O'Dwyer for Geary; J Meskell for Lawlor; N Moran for Sheehan; J Butler for Moran.
Referee: A MacSuibhne (Dublin).
