Dónal Óg's Hurling Nation: Waterford need a win, hurling needs protecting

Maidin mhaith hurling nation, aon scéal?

The hurling championship gets some room to breathe this week.

The GAA schedule has two provincial football finals and the start of the Tailteann Cup, which if you haven't heard of, is a sort of gaelic football Grand National for disappointed also-rans.

This means that we’ve one big hurling game at teatime on Saturday and available for viewing, you know where.

Say what you like but it beats have three hurling championship matches throwing in within the space of three hours on a Saturday evening – something the rushed calendar has given us.

Waterford versus Clare on the sacred turf of Semple Stadium. It’s a game you’d buy a ticket for just to watch Davy Fitz and Brian Lohan stalking and eyeballing each other up and down the sideline.

But it’s more than that.

Davy has brought a booster along in his first season with teams wherever he’s gone but so far this summer Waterford seem to be immune from the short, sharp shocks. They’ve look as flat as they did last summer.

After two straight losses, this is a game they have to win.

Pros and cons for Waterford? Overnight Austin Gleeson has been named to start and their defence has given up just one green flag so far, but their forward line is the only one in the competition yet to raise one.

What about Clare? They inflicted a few wounds on themselves in the first day against Tipperary but they hurled like demons for the 70 minutes plus when they needed to slay Limerick.

Clare’s trouble in the recent past has been stitching good performances together.

Davy Fitz will be looking at the Clare defence which has offered up seven goals so far and will be asking his forwards for a bit more.

It’s hard to believe that Waterford have lost five Munster finals since