Davy Fitzgerald put one over his former Clare team-mate Ger 'Sparrow' O'Loughlin as Waterford coasted to a surprisingly comfortable victory over the Banner in yesterday's Waterford Crystal Cup semi-final at Ballyduff Upper.

Waterford 1-17
Clare 0-8

Clare beat Tipperary in midweek, but they were only a pale shadow of that side against an inexperienced Waterford outfit for who Michael 'Brick' Walsh, Gary Hurney and Maurice Shanahan were outstanding.

The home side dominated from the off and led by 0-6 to 0-3 at the end of the first quarter. Waterford's early dominance was further rewarded when Eoin Kelly crashed a 20-metre free to the net to give them a 1-7 to 0-5 interval advantage.

Two points from Clare substitute Barry Nugent cut the gap back to four points on the restart, but despite having Eoin McGrath red-carded for an off-the-ball incident involving Alan Brigdale, Waterford continued to dictate and ran off another seven points without reply to canter into next Sunday's final against UCC at Dungarvan.

Waterford - C Hennessey; J Meagher, L Lawlor, M O'Brien; D Prendergast, M Walsh, J Nagle; E Kelly (1-1, 1f), J Murray (0-1); S Walsh (0-3), K Moran (0-1), M Shanahan (0-7, 5f) ; E McGrath, G Hurney (0-3), T Ryan (0-1). Subs : O Whelan for Ryan (52 mins), M O'Neill for Hurney (57 mins), N Jacob for Shanahan (58 mins).

Clare - D Tuohy; P Vaughan, C Dillon, A Brigdale; P Donnellan (0-1) , B O'Connell, G Quinn; A O'Brien, M Scanlon, A Markham; M Flaherty (0-3, 2f), D McMahon (0-1) , J Cusack. Subs: B Nugent (0-2) for Cusack (ht), C O'Donovan for O'Brien (ht), F Lynch for Clancy (43 mins), M Hawes (0-1, 1f) for Quinn (48 mins).

Ref: J Sexton (Cork). Tweet

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