By Shaun Casey

IF Armagh avoid defeat to Waterford in Saturday’s round three championship clash, they are guaranteed a home All-Ireland quarter-final draw, but Clodagh McCambrige knows all about the Déise’s quality from previous experience.

The Orchard County defeated Cork away in the opening round and the Rebels bounced back with a victory over their Munster neighbours Waterford last week.

Now, Waterford head to the Cathedral City knowing anything other than a win will bring their season to an end, but they can point to the memory of a recent league meeting between the two teams.

Waterford made the long journey to the BOX-IT Athletic Grounds at the start of the season and returned home with the two league points in the bag, dominating in a 2-14 to 0-8 win.

McCambridge commented: “That’s what we’ve come to expect with Waterford, they are very consistent in their performances. We know they’re always going to come out and compete with any team.”

“We saw it ourselves playing against them and even from watching them, we knew that they are a team to look out for this year.

“That league game was a performance we were really disappointed with. All the credit has to go to Waterford though; they were very well organised from the very start of the league. It’s something we’ll hopefully learn from and give a better performance this weekend.”

The Clann Éireann defender is hoping that home advantage will aid their cause this weekend as they look to make it two-from-two and top the group.

“It is very tough the way the competition is, you potentially face very long journeys, and we had that experience last weekend away to Cork,” she added.

“Hopefully we’ll get all the people out to support us that we can this weekend. We’ve got tough opposition coming up to face us so we’ll need all the backing we can get.”

After retaining their provincial title with a hard-earned victory over Tyrone, Armagh produced a stunning performance against Cork with Aimee Mackin bagging a hat-trick.

“I suppose off the back of the Ulster final we had a bit of momentum and then we were able to push on and bring that into the All-Ireland series.

“Cork were always going to be a tough opposition especially given they suffered a difficult loss to Kerry in Munster. We knew they were going to come with something to try and get a response, so to get a win on the road has hopefully set us up well.”

The Orchard County have welcomed a few youngsters to the panel who are already delivering the goods against some of the best teams in the country.

“During the league we probably played a lot of players that haven’t necessarily got a lot of gametime for Armagh over the past couple of years.

“That has really added to the experience of the team. It has helped to really build our squad depth, and having players coming back from injury is always going to bolster the squad as well.

“Having the minors coming in is great. The likes of Cassie Henderson, Erin Melanophy and Moya McGrane have come in and made an impact and are pushing everyone on.”