WHEN WATERFORD BEAT Cork in last year’s Munster senior hurling championship semi-final, the headlines went to Maurice Shanahan, and rightly so.
With Pauric Mahony cruelly ruled out through injury, Shanahan picked up the attacking slack and helped to prove that Waterford’s league final victory over the same opposition five weeks previously was no fluke.
Shanahan hit 1-9 on the day, including 1-1 from play, but two players came off the bench that day and have now firmly established themselves as shooting stars in their own right.
Shane Bennett came on in the 45th minute and had two points from play by full-time.
With two minutes of normal time remaining, Patrick Curran replaced Jake Dillon and he also managed a point before the finish.
There was another brilliant cameo moment from Bennett before the campaign ended, when he crashed home a bullet goal against Dublin in the All-Ireland quarter-final.
And between them, Curran and Bennett combined for 1-16 in the Bord Gáis Energy Munster U21 hurling championship victory over Cork last summer.
Waterford might have exited the provincial U21 championship at the hands of Clare but Curran helped himself to 1-7 in defeat and Bennett also impressed.
Both men also played in the 2013 All-Ireland minor final win against Galway, a day that saw Curran finish with 1-7.
In short, their attacking prowess has been well flagged for some time now.
In 2016, both players have taken their games to the next level.
Both players have scored in five of Waterford’s six Allianz Hurling League outings, with Bennett hitting 0-14 and Curran 0-23.
Arguably Curran’s standout performance was in the victory over Tipperary at Semple Stadium, when he collected a haul of 0-9, including seven from placed balls.
A two-time Harty Cup winner with Dungarvan Colleges, and Croke Cup medallist in 2013, Curran also posted 0-7 against Dublin.
Bennett’s most productive afternoon so far this year was in the final Division 1A fixture of the group campaign, when he spilt six points from play evenly between both halves against Galway at Walsh Park.
Having both of these players contributing so heavily to the scoreboard lessens the scoring burden that Shanahan carried so admirably on his shoulders last summer, and obviously provides manager Derek McGrath with more attacking options.
The accusation levelled against Waterford after their successful 2015 campaign was that the gameplan they came up with would only take them so far.
To go further, they needed to up the scoring rate considerably and the Déise hit 3-81 from five Division 1A games, an impressive tally considering they managed 3-68 from five Division 1B games last year.
Waterford goalkeeper Stephen O’Keeffe is a huge admirer of both players – and describes Curran’s influence so far this season as “huge.”
“Absolutely, he’s been huge,” O’Keeffe said.
“He got a few runs last year but he’s really stepped up as one of the leaders of the forwards this year.
“He’s been excellent, he’s taken over some of the frees when he’s been needed as well, he’s nailed nine out of 10 of them.
“He’s a huge lad, the likes of Shane Bennett stepping up as well this year, he’s been big, Pauric Mahony recovering from injury too. There’s options there.
“In fairness to Shane, he was doing his Leaving Cert last year so you tend to forget how young some of the lads are.
In fairness to them they seem to take it in their stride. They’re the lads who are stepping up as leaders. It’s not necessarily the lads who are just older, so it’s great.”
With Shanahan continuing to score freely (0-29 in this year’s league, including 0-12 in the quarter-final victory over Wexford), the omens are good for Waterford as they look forward to the concluding stages of the League campaign before thoughts turn to championship.
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