They came, they saw, they humiliated Drogheda United with an outcome that places either side at opposite ends of the table. Waterford are now perched on top while the Drogs root around at the bottom.
My daughter's 23rd birthday, I invited her along for what I hoped was a birthday treat. I could now face a charge of exposing her to maltreatment. The Drogs truly were that bad. After a promising start via a high press, they seemed in control of the game, then succumbed to a blistering display from Waterford who simply ran them off the park.
When the Drogs took the lead, delighting the fans with a well worked Zishim Bawa strike, myself and Paddy agreed that there was only one winner. Less than two minutes had passed before the score was level through a fortunate header in the midst of poor defending. By no means a stunning goal it had the effect of a stun grenade, Rattled, the heads of the Drogs seemed to drop, nobody moving to rouse the deflated eleven. Nevertheless, I agreed with Paddy when he felt that there were plenty of goals left in this one. While that proved true they were all for the opposition, with the exception of a well executed Drog goal that was ruled offside. Darragh Leahy, as he did two seasons back when playing for Dundalk, netted a brace for the visitors.
This is the worst Drogheda performance I have attended. Only in the first fifteen minutes did they look compact and organised. That was the time it took Waterford to settle, after which it was all one way traffic. The Weaver men had lost their wizardry and the half time pep talk failed to prevent them looking dishevelled and disorganised. Captain Gary Deegan, uncertain how to knit together into a soccer tapestry the loose threads his team presented themselves as. What he ended up with was not a tight fabric but a loose net that opponents just swam through.
Two matches into the new season, the Drogs have no points, having also been defeated in the opening away clash with Derry. Fans expected that after the penalty miss at the Brandywell, the team would lick its wounds and put on an extravaganza against newly promoted Waterford with which to launch their home campaign. Instead they played like a nervous away side, the only fire coming from the flares that the fans periodically launched from both sides of the ground.
When my daughter and her boyfriend got up to leave, there was still about 15 minutes left. They politely said they could make an earlier bus to Dublin. What they really meant, I think, was that there was no point in hanging around to experience even more disappointment on what should have been a rewarding day for her. At least they could go somewhere whereas the Drogs were going nowhere.
Well, they do have somewhere else to go next week - to Shamrock Rovers, a daunting prospect, after which they are likely to find themselves bottom of the table with no points, stirring fears of a season long relegation battle.
On the ninety minute mark we vacated our own seats. Seems the only thing fixed at Weaver Park in close season was the leak in the roof.
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