Waterford 1-10
Clare 0-9

Waterford booked their place into the last four of this year's Munster Senior Football Championship with a hard-earned win over Clare this afternoon at a blistering hot Dungarvan.

The Deise County, who handed their neighbours a nine-point defeat in their NFL meeting last month, found Clare a tougher obstacle this time around.

It was Michael McDermott's team that held the advantage at the break thanks in no small way to star forward David Tubridy, who accounted for 0-4 in the opening 35 minutes.

Waterford turned it around in the second-half though and were sprung by Gary Hurney's goal which arrived eight minutes in and from there on the men in white held on to their lead with both hands until the long whistle.

Clare had made the better start to this game edging in to a 0-3 to 0-2 lead after 13 minutes when Michael O'Shea snuck in behind the Waterford defence and fired over to back up the points of Gary Brennan and Tubridy in the opening stages.

The Banner men powered three in front when Brennan and Tubridy added frees to their tallies, before the latter landed another accurately placed ball.

Brian Wall responded with a free of his own for the hosts, but it was their guests that held all the aces after the opening 25 minutes as they laid down an early marker in this encounter.

However, Waterford seemed to receive their wake-up call shortly afterwards and trimmed their deficit down to the minimum by the half-hour mark.

A badly needed point from play arrived for the Deise via Patrick Hurney and when Wayne Hennessy struck a beauty from along the sideline John Owens' charges were revived.

Wall brought the sides level with a well struck free, but when Tubridy did likewise down the other end on the eve of half-time it was Clare that still boasted a slender 0-7 to 0-6 lead come the interval.

Tubridy looked to stretch Clare's lead after the restart but he dropped his free short and their neighbours took advantage.

Eight minutes in and brave work from Liam O Lionain in the corner allowed him to release Hurney, who buried the ball to the back of the Clare net on the turn to hand Waterford a first lead.

Clare recovered well almost instantly with points from O'Shea to steer themselves level, but Waterford kept their noses in front after Tommy Prendergast finished off a slick move over the bar to put the scores at 1-7 to 0-9.

Hurney added another point which left Clare hunting for a goal in the closing stages, with Tubridy at the forefront, but they were kept out by a stern Deise defence and when Robert Ahearne popped up with the insurance point in injury-time Waterford's passage through to the semi-final against Limerick was sealed. Tweet

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