The London fairytale was ended at Ruislip this evening when an early goal from Gary Hurney paved the way for a comfortable Waterford win.

Waterford 1-17
London 0-13

Having ended a 34-year wait for a championship victory against Fermanagh a fortnight ago, the Exiles had high hopes of chalking up another win against a Waterford team that had been hammered by All-Ireland champions Cork in their Munster SFC semi-final, but a lack of discipline and poor passing cost them dearly.

Paul Goggins' side finished the game with just 13 players after former Galway midfielder Paul Geraghty and fellow half forward Ciaran McCallion were sent off on second yellow cards either side of half-time. But even before Geraghty's dismissal, they were already struggling to stay with the visitors, for whom Paul Whyte and Wayne Hennessy were very impressive in attack.

Former dual star Hurney was also outstanding for the winners. Despite wearing the number nine jersey, he lined out at full forward and proceeded to give the home side's full back Michael Maloney a torrid time.

London opened the scoring through Eoin O'Neill, but Waterford were never headed after Gary Hurney netted in the seventh minute. The Deise led by 1-1 to 0-2 after 10 minutes and had extended their advantage to 1-5 to 0-2 by the 16th minute thanks to points from Hurney, Sean Fleming, Whyte and Brian Wall.

With Whyte on form from placed balls, the visitors led by 1-8 to 0-4 after 29 minutes. The Exiles were struggling badly at this stage and their task was made all the more difficult when their talisman Paul Geraghty was sent off on a second yellow card for an off-the-ball incident. Wayne Hennessy tagged on a point to leave Waterford sitting on a comfortable 1-10 to 0-5 lead at the break.

Despite being down to 14 players, London restarted strongly with a brace of Eoin O'Neill points narrowing the gap to six, 0-8 to 1-11. But they couldn't get any closer and their challenge was effectively ended by McCallion's sending off for a rash tackle on Waterford captain Tony Grey.

Whyte and Hennessy pushed out the visitors' lead to 1-13 to 0-8 15 minutes into the second half and eight points continued to separate the sides, 1-15 to 0-8, with eight minutes to go, despite London points from captain Sean McVeigh and midfielder Mark Gottsche.

The free-scoring Whyte grabbed three of the last six points as John Owens' Waterford side marched into the next round with plenty to spare. Tweet

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