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4th August 2011
10:50am BST
After possibly the briefest hurling career in the history of the GAA, Seanie Johnston is now, finally, eligible to play for the Kildare footballers.
Johnston had to feature in a Kildare club championship match before he was eligible to make a long-awaited appearance in the Lilywhite jersey and with that opportunity not arising for his new club, St. Kevin’s, before Kildare’s clash with Meath tomorrow, Johnston lined out with the hurlers of Coill Dubh, St. Kevin’s sister club, in the championship this afternoon.
To say he made an appearance would be stretching it just a tad. According to widespread reports on Twitter, having started at top of the left – where else? – Johnston lasted less than a minute before being withdrawn, thus, ironically (and with no offence intended to the current Kildare hurling team), making him the most well-known Kildare hurler in the country.
As rumours that Johnston was going to make an appearance for Coill Dubh had been circulating strongly all week, the crowds flocked to catch sight of the Cavan native and Sunday Game editor Eamonn Donohue tweeted this picture of Johnston in the warm-up as well as coining an official hashtag for the occasion, #seaniewatch.
Pic via Twitter/Eamonn Donohue
Hurling aficionados will point out that Johnston didn’t exactly look comfortable with a hurl in his hands, indeed RTE analyst and former All-Ireland winning Offaly hurler Michael Duignan pointed out that his technique was all wrong.
Enough comment has been passed about Johnston at this stage and we’re not going to do so again here, but at least his appearance removes all doubt about his eligibility and he and Kildare can begin to focus on football at long last.
In fact, considering that Seanie went off so early, he can start to focus on football this afternoon as he would have been home well in time to catch Donegal v Tyrone game on the telly.
