Wexford county football team

The Wexford county football team represents Wexford in men's Gaelic football and is governed by Wexford GAA, the County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The team competes in the three major annual inter-county competitions; the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, the Leinster Senior Football Championship and the National Football League.

Seán O'Kennedy, captain of Wexford, All-Ireland Senior Football Champions 1916

Wexford's home ground is Wexford Park, Wexford. The team's manager is Shane Roche.

The team last won the Leinster Senior Championship in 1945, the All-Ireland Senior Championship in 1918 and has never won the National League.

History

Wexford had one of the greatest football teams in the history of the GAA in the 1910s, winning six consecutive Leinster titles and the first team to win four All-Ireland titles in a row.[1] The team was trained by 1900 star James 'the Bull' Roche, who had fought for the World heavyweight boxing championship. The team featured Fr Ned Wheeler, Aidan Doyle and the O'Kennedy brothers, Gus and Sean. The latter was the team captain. The feat of six Leinster titles in a row was only equalled in 1931 when Kildare won the sixth in a sequence that began in 1926.[2]

Wexford's last major football success was winning the Leinster title in 1945. From then on, hurling took precedence in Wexford and as a consequence the Wexford footballers suffered, with the team descending into obscurity for many years. More recently, Wexford have had a strong team. The team reached the Division 1 League final of 2005 under the management of Pat Roe but were beaten by a strong Armagh team that day.

In April 2008, in Jason Ryan's first year as manager of the team, Wexford beat Fermanagh to win the Division 3 League final. This proved to be the first success of what would be a historic year for Wexford football, as they reached their first Leinster final in over 50 years. Along the way they stunned Meath by coming from ten points down to win their quarter-final in Carlow, and then beat Laois comprehensively in the semi-final. This was Wexford's 5th consecutive appearance in the provincial semi-final, but their first victory. In the final they were comprehensively beaten by a strong Dublin team, 3–23 to 0–09.

However, Wexford recovered from their humiliation and came through the back door, beating Down by seven points in a shock result to reach the last eight and a match-up with Armagh. From here, they produced one of the shocks of the championship, winning by 1–14 to 0–12 to reach their first All Ireland semi-final since 1945. They were beaten by 6 points by Tyrone, having been within two points of the eventual champions in the closing stages.

Wexford again reached the Leinster final in the 2011 Leinster Championship. Wexford had an easier run to the final than in 2008, facing Offaly, Westmeath and Carlow. In the final they faced Dublin again, but ran them much closer. A poor performance from Dublin's star player Bernard Brogan helped Wexford stay in touch with Dublin throughout the match, but a bizarre own goal meant they ultimately lost by 2–12 to 1–12, to the team that went on to win the All-Ireland.[3][4] Wexford entered Round 4 of the qualifiers where they faced Limerick, but they were beaten by a single point, on a score of 1–18 to 1–17.

Kildare native Paul McLoughlin was named as manager in 2017.[5]

Paul Galvin briefly managed Wexford during 2019 and 2020 before moving away mid-season during the COVID-19 pandemic; his selector Shane Roche was appointed on an interim basis.[6] Galvin never actually managed the team in a championship game.[7]

Current squad

Team as per Wexford vs Wicklow in the NFL Round 4, 5 March 2017

No. Player Position Club
1 Shane Roche Goalkeeper Geraldine O'Hanrahan's
2 Brian Malone Right Corner Back Shelmaliers
3 Jim Rossiter Full Back St Fintan's
4 Michael Furlong Left Corner Back Adamstown
5 Eoghan Nolan Right Half Back Shelmaliers
6 Joey Wadding Centre Back St Fintan's
7 Tiarnan Rossiter Left Half Back St Mary's Rosslare
8 Daithí Waters (c) Midfield St Martin's
9 Colm Kehoe Midfield Cloughbawn
10 Kevin O'Grady Right Half Forward St. James'
11 Ben Brosnan Centre Forward Castletown
12 Conor Carty Left Half Forward Castletown
13 Ciarán Lyng Right Corner Forward St Martin's
14 John Tubritt Full Forward Fethard
15 James Stafford Left Corner Forward Glynn-Barntown
No. Player Position Club
16 Conor Swaine Substitute Horeswood
17 Naomhán Rossiter Substitute St Mary's Rosslare
18 Seán Gaul Substitute St Anne's
19 Jake Firman Substitute St Martin's
20 Ryan Nolan Substitute Ferns St. Aidan's
21 Donnacha Holmes Substitute Castletown
22 Michael O'Regan Substitute Glynn-Barntown
23 Seán Culleton Substitute Geraldine O'Hanrahan's
24 Niall Hughes Substitute Kilanerin–Ballyfad
25 Rob Tierney Substitute Glynn-Barntown
26 John Leacy Substitute Glynn-Barntown
27 Paul Leonard water boy Glynn-Barntown

Current management team

Honours

References
  1. Wexford Four in a Row Archived 20 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Smith, Raymond (1968). "Chapter 4 – Wexford's Four-in-a-row". The Football Immortals. Dublin: Bruce Spicer Ltd. pp. 50–61.
  3. O'Riordan, Ian (11 July 2011). "Final cut is cruel as Wexford's own goal is decisive". The Irish Times.
  4. Murphy, Cian (10 July 2010). "Gilroy happy to survive on rare Brogan offday". Irish Independent.
  5. "Wexford name Paul McLoughlin as new football manager". RTÉ Sport. 8 October 2017. Retrieved 8 October 2017.
  6. "Relocated Galvin steps away from Wexford role". RTÉ Sport. 15 September 2020.
  7. "How GAA managers have changed the landscape of the game". RTÉ Sport. 14 December 2020. The record for shortest tenure as manager this year surely goes to Paul Galvin who was in charge for a grand total of zero championship games before walking out of the Wexford football job, citing time and travel commitments as the reasons behind his unexpected decision.
  8. "Leinster JFC final: Model men stun Royals with last-gasp goal". Hogan Stand. 25 June 2015. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  9. "Leinster JFC final: nice Wee win for Model". Hogan Stand. 21 June 2016. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
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