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GAA

23rd Apr 2023

Waterford mentor sent off and Limerick doctor yellow carded in the maddest minute of hurling you’ve ever seen

Niall McIntyre

Limerick 1-18 Waterford 0-19

A snapshot in time (45 minutes on the clock)

Billy Nolan saves a Waterford penalty. Tom Barron gallops out of defence and floors Gearoid Hegarty, who’s six inches taller than him. William O’Donoghue and Kyle Hayes are lining him up – it’s worth mentioning that both are again, six inches taller than him  – but Barron is still standing.

The sliotar slips and slides and hops and breaks.

There are 15 men hunting it down between the two 65s. Kyle Hayes wins it. He plays a 50:50 between Barry Nash and Jack Fagan, which Fagan wins, before getting taken clean out of it by Nash. Nash is already on a yellow so he should go for that.

But given the chaos that ensues in the immediate aftermath, you’d forgive Liam Gordon for losing track.

The ball scuttles out towards the Waterford bench and out over the sideline. Gearoid Hegarty meets Conor Gleeson with such a sickener of a shoulder that, whether he was or wasn’t on a yellow before, he was guaranteed a red now.

His momentum takes him forward to Austin Gleeson who, due to an injury, hasn’t started and is just about to come on as a sub.

They meet in the middle.

The twin towers collide and Gleeson is stuck into it, technically, before he’s been brought onto it.

Davy Fitz is roaring and jumping and calling for a red card for Hegarty. But there’s even more to come.

A silly, silly, silly Waterford mentor leaps down from the bench to slap Gearoid Hegarty in the chest. Hegarty is like a piñata at a birthday party at this stage, because everyone’s taking a shot.

Kyle Hayes is effing and blinding at the Waterford mentor. Hegarty gets a second yellow and he’s gone. The Waterford mentor gets red. The Limerick team doctor gets a yellow.

A snapshot in time. (46 minutes on the clock)

Liam Gordon has given cards to more men than he hasn’t. Limerick hold onto win by two. What a game of hurling.

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