The pretenders to Kilkenny’s throne will be hoping that their dominance will come to an end sometime, but the immediate future looks fairly bright in the Marble County.
Kilkenny kittens doing a fine job of living up to the Cats
There has been plenty and perhaps a little too much attention on the harrowing fortunes of the Kilkenny footballers so far this year as they struggled manfully to compete in Division Four of the NFL and the Leinster Junior Championship (not an easy task when Dermot Earley’s lining out at full forward on the Kildare side).
Now that summer is kicking into gear, however, the focus can be entirely shifted – it barely moved away from them anyway – to the hurlers and with five of the last six All-Ireland titles, some will wonder how long they can continue to dine at the top table while the chasing pack lives off their meagre crumbs.
Age seems to be finally getting the better of the Kerry footballers, for instance, so there will come a time when Henry, Tommy, Jackie, Cody and the rest will stand aside and make way for some new pretenders to the throne, right?
Not so, it seems, or at least if they do, it will be to the next batch of Cats and not to anyone outside of the Marble borders. Judging by the display of their under-21 side last night, Kilkenny are well served for the future as they ran out 11 point winners over a fancied Wexford side in the Leinster semi-final last night and did so after giving the Model lads a six-point headstart and conceding two goals when the game was over in the last ten minutes.
Senior star Cillian Buckley was absent, but that proved no problem with the likes of Walter Walsh and John Power, brother of Richie, stepping up in his absence. This weekend, former Kilkenny star Adrian Ronan will oversee the next generation when the minors take on Dublin in the Leinster Championship before the senior sides meet at headquarters and those present will no doubt be presented with evidence that the production line is functioning as smoothly as ever.
Same as it ever was.
Give the underdogs a chance
Speaking of domination, there is no province in the country in either code that is as subject to the influence of two counties as the Munster Football Championship. Only once since 1935 have a team other than Cork and Kerry won it, so why in the name of God are the authorities considering making it even harder to win for the other four participating counties?
The Munster Council are believed to be thinking about reverting to a seeded system in the Munster Championship which existed before 1991 and again in 2007 and 2008, which would see Cork and Kerry placed at either side of a draw and in all inevitability, end up meeting in the Munster Final year after year.
Former Clare footballer Seamus Clancy is firmly opposed to the idea, telling the Irish Examiner: “We are in Division 4 in the league and our goal this year was to win a Munster title. To do that this year, we had to beat Cork or Kerry. The chances of us or any team in Ireland beating Cork and Kerry one after another are long.
“Could you imagine Donegal, for example? As good as they are, what would their chances be of beating one of them and then the other a few weeks later? Slim enough. Clare have got to a Munster final this year on merit and they believe they have one crack at it. If they play well on the day and have a bit of luck they can pull off a Munster title.
“But if they were to play Kerry a few weeks later, it would be difficult. I think the whole championship should be an open draw, anyway. Give everyone a fair chance.”
We think Clancy is onto something with open draw applying to the whole championship, but at least give them a chance in their own backyard first. Clare’s surprise win in 1992 will never be forgotten and if they could pull off another unlikely result against Cork in this year’s decider, everyone involved will automatically assume legendary status in the Banner County.
The prospect of Clare, Limerick, Tipperary or Waterford winning a Munster Football title might be remote, but don’t remove the possibility of it happening altogether.
