Limerick held Waterford scoreless in the second half to win by 2-12 to 0-7 at the Gaelic Grounds.

A crowd of 2,341 turned out to witness a game where the turning point seemed to be a Waterford penalty miss in the early stages of the second period.

Limerick led by 1-5 to 0-7 at the break, with all Waterford's first-half points coming from play.

JJ Hutchinson, Mark Ferncombe, Tony Grey and Shane Ahearne were amongst the visitors' scorers while Seamus Carroll (1-1) and Ian Ryan (0-4) were the scorers-in-chief for the Treaty men before the break.

With both sides missing a number of key men, this one was always going to be a battle of wills.

Waterford roared into an early two-point lead thanks to scores from Hutchinson (who replaced Fleming in the starting team) and Ferncombe.

A brace of Ryan frees had the Treaty men level but centre back Grey made it 0-3 to 0-2 to the Decies, who were doing all their early scoring from play.

In the 19th minute, full forward Carroll booted to the net - after a Paul Kinnerk delivery was fumbled - to make it 1-3 to 0-3. Waterford mustered the next two points - including another one from No.6 Grey - and Ryan clipped over his third via an upright to make it 1-4 to 0-5 to the hosts.

Waterford landed two of the final three scores of the half to trail by just one at the interval.

The Decies were awarded a penalty at the start of the second half but Brian Scanlon saved from Ferncombe to preserve Limerick's one-point lead.

Waterford just couldn't get any scores in the second half as Ryan added three frees for Limerick, who led by 1-8 to 0-7 with eleven minutes left.

Ryan brought his tally to 1-8, cracking a great goal in off the crossbar, as the hosts cruised to an easy win in the end.

Limerick - B Scanlon; J McCarthy, P Browne, L O'Dwyer; S Lavin, J Riordan, P Ranahan; T Lee, P Kinnerk; E Barry, E O'Connor, S Buckley; G Collins (0-2), S O'Carroll (1-0), I Ryan (1-8). Subs: I Corbett for Barry, J O'Meara for Kinnerk, S Kelly (0-1) for O'Carroll, J Cooke (0-1) for Lee, S Lucey for Ranahan.

Waterford - K Cotter; M O'Gorman, T O'Gorman, K Connery; W Hennessy, T Grey (0-2), S Briggs; S Ahearne (0-1), S O'Hare; P Hurney, S Dempsey, C O'Keeffe; T Prendergast, JJ Hutchinson (0-2), M Ferncombe (0-2). Subs: J Veale for Ferncombe, , P Whyte for Hutchinson, S Fleming for Dempsey.

Ref - C Lane (Cork). Tweet

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