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RTÉ News
2 days ago
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Adrian Mullen readying for another Tribal test against Galway
Kilkenny and Galway meet at Croke Park for a Leinster final on Sunday afternoon looking to see who can claim the best-two-out-of-three seasonal series between the sides. It's the third meeting of the pair in 2025 and the balance is currently, well, balanced with one win apiece. Galway gave the Cats a rare home defeat at UMPC Nowlan Park during their Allianz League encounter back in early February while the Black and Amber turned the tables on the opening week of the Leinster championship round robin stage with a commanding 12-point win at the same venue. Can Sunday's decider help split the difference? Kilkenny forward Adrian Mullen is expecting the tightest of finals. "Every game takes a life of its own," Mullen told RTÉ Sport this week. "Looking back to the league, they gave us a lesson in Nowlan Park. They won the league game, we won the round robin game – it's all to play for on Sunday. "Down through the years we've had ferocious games against Galway and there's usually not a puck of a ball between us. We're expecting the same this time around." The two counties finished with similar records after league campaigns that seemed to ask as many questions as they answered. Both won three and lost three during their six-game Division 1A campaigns although Kilkenny managed to eke out a +4 scoring difference. The Tribesmen's lopsided -24 score difference owed to a trio of heavy defeats at the hands of Cork, Limerick and Tipperary – all three, remarkably, by 12 points. Mullen, for his part, is just happy to have ticked an early seasonal objective off the list. Another provincial final reached. "Your objectives at the start of the year are to try and compete in every game and try win every game," Mullen said. "We've won a few games in the round robin, we're here in the Leinster final now and we're looking forward to Sunday." The defending provincial champs have blooded some youngsters throughout the league but some of their veteran performers have continued to stand tallest when needed most. "We're trying to blood a few of the younger lads who won the Under-20 championship a few years ago," Mullen said. "They're still trying to find their feet and it's up to a few of the experienced lads to be bringing them through and showing them the ropes. "All the lads are putting in a ferocious shift this year. You look at Huw Lawlor, Richie Reid, TJ Reid of course, all the lads putting it in – you can't ask for much more."
The 42
2 days ago
- Sport
- The 42
Who will be the next generational talent to emerge in Kilkenny hurling ranks?
SHORTLY AFTER MICHAEL Fennelly retired in late 2017, he put a final message into the Kilkenny senior hurlers WhatsApp group, imploring the younger players to step up. The eight-time All-Ireland winner felt he'd let the first few years of his own senior county career pass him by. That he'd waited for a spot in the team to open up when he should have been pushing players out. He had current Kilkenny manager Derek Lyng in mind and acknowledged that while he waited for Lyng to retire, Michael Rice and James 'Cha' Fitzpatrick snuck in ahead of him. 'I told them to just jump straight in there and don't be holding back for a year or two or three years thinking you'll get your place then at that time,' revealed Fennelly of his WhatsApp message. Eight years on, Kilkenny are enduring their joint longest ever streak without All-Ireland success and, as far as another household name goes, a truly generational talent to mirror those of the golden era that the Shamrocks man played in, they're still waiting for one to emerge. One of Fennelly's colleagues during the boom times, Jackie Tyrrell, addressed the issue during a chat with Radio Kerry after the 2021 Championship. 'We just haven't had a 'wow' hurler since Richie Hogan came in in 2007/2008 – that's 13 years ago,' said Tyrrell. 'Every year, if you go back, there was a 'Cha' Fitzpatrick, there was a Richie Power, there was a Tommy Walsh, a JJ Delaney, a Henry Shefflin. 'We had all those players coming through in the space of 10, 15 years. We've now gone 13 years and we haven't had this wow hurler come through since TJ Reid and Richie Hogan.' Hogan retired after the 2023 season though Reid is still going. And Kilkenny continue to lean on the 37-year-old for inspiration. TJ Reid. Ken Sutton / INPHO Ken Sutton / INPHO / INPHO That's understandable, of course. He is a generational talent but as one of just three players left in the squad – his brother Richie and goalkeeper Eoin Murphy are the others – with an All-Ireland senior medal from 2015, he is increasingly surrounded by a silver generation of performers. Tyrrell did suggest that Eoin Cody, in time, could be a genuine iconic figure. Joe Canning, a 'wow' player back when Galway were at their peak as All-Ireland champions in 2017, said something similar about Cody ahead of the 2022 All-Ireland final. Going through the players individually for his Irish Times column, Canning pointed to Cody as a player who 'has the potential to be one of the great Kilkenny forwards'. But while Cody went on to collect an All-Star in 2023, a mixture of injuries, patchy personal form and Limerick's excellence has so far prevented him from making that leap to superstardom. Neither Lyng nor his predecessor Brian Cody can be accused of sitting on their hands on the issue. The Allianz League is the home of experimentation and Kilkenny have been busy doling out spring-time debuts. Even in the five-game Covid affected campaign of 2020, Cody used 34 different players in the league, searching in every nook and cranny for the next TJ or DJ. He used 32 players in 2022 while Lyng performed his own trawl after he took over in 2023, handing competitive game time to 37 different players in that season's league with the figure standing at 35 for the 2024 league and 32 this year. The opportunity to experiment in the championship is rare so when Kilkenny and Wexford faced off last Sunday week in a dead rubber Leinster SHC tie, Lyng got creative again. Peter McDonald, Zach Bay Hammond, Padraic Moylan, Killian Doyle, Luke Connellan, Peter Connellan, Billy Drennan and Owen Wall all started their first championship games of 2025. Gearoid Dunne, Niall Shortall and Shane Staunton came on for their first appearances in this year's championship. Advertisement Luke Connellan impressed, pinching two points, but Wexford won and, afterwards, Lyng wasn't enthused by the overall display, lamenting the fact that Kilkenny 'didn't get the result and a better performance'. The search, it appears, goes on. Eoin Cody. Leah Scholes / INPHO Leah Scholes / INPHO / INPHO Adrian Mullen, like Cody, has the potential to be one of Tyrrell's 'wow' players though time is not on his side. His younger brother, Jake, has been ripping it up in the minor championship this year and is definitely one to watch in the longer term with potential marquee status in mind. Mullen the elder played that game against Wexford at centre-back in a novel switch. Fionan Mackessy, the former Kerry star, lined out too, just his third championship start for Kilkenny after making the unlikely inter-county transfer. Kilkenny have rarely done those sort of transfers over the years. Lyng is clearly having to search for something that Cody was gifted with – stellar talents in virtually all lines of the pitch. Kildare's Joe McDonagh Cup final manager Brian Dowling spoke recently about breaking through to one of Cody's senior teams as a teenager. He was gone after a couple of seasons and never got a second chance. Dowling said it left him with a tonne of regrets. Cody had that luxury, to simply turn to his bench and beckon forward the next phenom who, typically, came armed with All-Ireland minor and U-20 medals. Between 2002 and 2014, when Cody was in charge of the seniors, Kilkenny teams won five All-Ireland minor titles and four All-Ireland U-20 titles. Since 2014? Not a single minor win and just one U-20 crown, in 2022. Moylan, Doyle, McDonald, Drennan and Dunne were all on that successful 2022 U-20 team. Doyle is among a talented bunch of young Kilkenny players who won a Croke Cup medal with St Kieran's College. The college won back-to-back titles in 2023 and 2024. Moylan won a Fitzgibbon Cup All-Star earlier this year with DCU. Plenty more, like Harry Shine, a St Kieran's graduate who started against Offaly in the championship last month, have come to the senior panel with significant reputations. 'There are players that have come up through the Kilkenny ranks that are very talented, the likes of Harry Shine,' said Walter Walsh, who famously displayed his own prodigious talent with 1-3 for Kilkenny on his debut in 2012 against Galway in an All-Ireland final replay. This year's U-20 team reached the All-Ireland decider, losing out to Tipperary, and, who knows, big full-forward Marty Murphy from that team could yet be the next Walter Walsh. He's from the same club too. Eoghan Lyng from the 20s team is already on the senior panel, coming on against Antrim in the Leinster championship. Most likely though, Kilkenny will go with tried and trusted again for today's Leinster final. Martin Keoghan, at 26 years of age and on the panel since 2018, has been their best player this season. More concerning, the average age of the team that lined out against Dublin in Round 4 – the last time they fielded their strongest team – was 28. 'They still haven't found a player like Tipperary have found in Darragh McCarthy,' said Walsh. Kilkenny manager Derek Lyng. Ken Sutton / INPHO Ken Sutton / INPHO / INPHO Not that Lyng is complaining about any of it. For him, the sum of all his players' individual efforts is adding up to a powerful collective. And waiting for history to repeat itself and for another Henry Shefflin or Tommy Walsh to materialise doesn't keep him up at night. 'We compare all the time to the past teams and we have to stop doing that,' he said after the win over Dublin. 'We have a team here that's competing really well and competing hard. I think there's probably a narrative that we're going to be the team that was there 10, 15 years ago, whatever it was. That's not the case. It's Kilkenny of 2025.'
RTÉ News
3 days ago
- Sport
- RTÉ News
FRC housekeeping can help preserve classic championship
The adage "perfect is the enemy of good" was surely somewhere in Jim Gavin's Football Review Commitee philosophy. When they set about this task, getting everything perfect the first time was always going to be impossible. Attempting to do so would have been a huge barrier to the breakneck speed with which they executed their mission. For someone as detail orientated as Jim Gavin appears to be, this allowance for imperfection and adapting as things develop could not have rested particularly easy. To minimise issues, the group were exhaustive in their attempt to reason out every change and the myriad of knock-on consequences. While the continuous tweaks during the Allianz League frustrated many, their overall success was remarkable and allowed them to put their rule amending pens away ahead of the championship. Since then we have all got to sit back and enjoy the results of the group's labours. Drawing a direct cause and effect between the enhancements and the great championship we are experiencing to date is open to accusations of bias. The fact that the championship is more open, that there were great games under the previous rules, and that teams are simply too inexperienced with the new rules to wrestle the game back under their control means that a definitive conclusion on the direct impact of the rules cannot be drawn. Even the greatest contrarian would have to admit though that the coincidence of the rule changes and the quality of games we are seeing is notable. The exciting thing is that we are only reaching the stage where, over the past 10 to 20 years, the good football usually starts. And this is the thing. We are also reaching the stage where the line in the history books are completed, a player's entire career finds their defining moment and supporters see their dreams come through. My biggest dread over the next seven weeks is that a quirk in the rules becomes the decisive event. Now, for me, is the perfect moment, between group stage and knockout games, for the FRC to do a bit of housekeeping. There is much that can and will be debated as the game evolves under the new rules over the coming years, but there are things that have become evident and need to be tidied up as the outworkings which we have seen are presumably going against what the FRC envisaged. My biggest dread over the next seven weeks is that a quirk in the rules becomes the decisive event Most importantly for me is the rule that allows a touch by an opposition player to decrease a two-point effort's value to one. Why is this very minor and infrequent rule the most important? The likelihood for it being game-deciding is perhaps greater than any other rule. As we know, big games have a habit of coming down to the wire. In these scenarios, and with the hooter game in particular, teams know exactly what they or their opponent need. If a player, at a critical moment, goes for that two-pointer and scores it, why should it be halved in value because an opposition player touches the ball? I believe this rule came in to prevent the scenario that if a ball was dropping close to the crossbar and players jumped to assist/prevent it travelling over, it may be difficult to ascertain if it was touched and by whom or, more critically, if the touch was necessary for the ball to make it over the bar. This type of thing is evidence of the extent to which the FRC went into the minutiae to try to avoid potential problems with its various enhancements. The problem here is that in ensuring their rule didn't fall foul of the extremely rare scenario described, they ended up making it feel unnaturally complicated. If a touch is required to make a shot travel over the bar, then it should not be counted as a two-pointer. If an opposition player attempts to stop a shot but it still travels over, then it should count. Moving onto the solo and go, that almost universally liked enhancement - albeit, ironically one which reduces kick passing and increasing control of possession - is almost too advantageous in some scenarios. When a player can throw it out of the immediate location of the free kick to a team-mate taking it at full speed it is a huge advantage. We wouldn't allow a free-kick to be taken so loosely in relation to the position of the foul. Similarly, the kick-out mark is having overly advantageous impact. A theme to both of these is the massive impact of a 50m penalty - and the two-pointer option that carries - with any infringement against them. In combination, that gives them a game-defining ability. Like it or not and trust me, this isn't just the Tyrone in me coming out, that means every team will be looking at playing 'smart' in such moments and drawing those 50m penalties. The thought of an All-Ireland final being decided on such would be a terrible end to a great championship. The FRC has held its counsel for several weeks now, but I believe it's time to see Jim and his crew break out their pens for a bit of light editing. This championship to date has been the best in 20 years. The rules have been central to that in my opinion. But, while they have defined it, it would be a real pity if they end up deciding it.
Irish Daily Mirror
5 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Daily Mirror
Derry display the perfect riposte to Gavin Devlin 'sulking' jibe says McKaigue
Chrissy McKaigue has said that Derry's performance against Galway disproves Gavin Devlin's 'sulking' theory. Speaking after Derry had been dumped out of Ulster Championship by Donegal this year, Devlin said that current boss Paddy Tally 'should have run a million miles away' from the job as the players still pined for former manager Rory Gallagher. Devlin was part of Mickey Harte's management team in Derry last year and though it started well as they won the Allianz League, things went south in the Championship and the duo departed after the All-Ireland quarter-final loss to Kerry. He added that he felt they were 'sulking' in the closing 20 minutes against Donegal and that if Gallagher didn't return 'you are better just putting that team in the bin and building a new team'. McKaigue retired after last year's Championship, though his association with Devlin goes back way before 2024, with the Tyrone man having managed his club, Slaughtneil, while the pair also coached together in Ardboe. Last Sunday, Derry played out a rip-roaring draw with Galway in what was their best championship performance since the narrow defeat to Kerry in the 2023 All-Ireland semi-final. McKaigue said: 'Gavin's a very affable character, I'm very friendly with him. At times he wouldn't pull any punches, as that interview showed. 'I suppose what I would go back and say to that comment is, watching Derry at the weekend, it was a really strong performance from Derry in terms of their attitude, their application, their intensity. 'It was frightening the intensity Derry brought to that game. Sitting in Celtic Park in the stand watching the intensity they brought was probably a chip off the old block. 'But now for Derry it's the consistency in that, that they can back that up like the best teams do, week in week out or game in game out. 'So Gavin's comments, he obviously made that comment, we all heard that comment but if you were at the game at the weekend you would say to yourself, 'Hopefully this is the real turning point for that Derry group' because no one really gives them a chance against Galway, let's be honest. 'I think Galway themselves were taken back by the intensity, the physicality that Derry brought. But I tell you what from a Derry supporter's point of view and just from knowing the lads it was a performance to warm the heart and to be honest with you, nine times out of 10, they get the result.'
Irish Examiner
27-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Fogarty Forum: Hurling's footprint in season is too shallow
Only 242 days until Antrim, Clare, Offaly, Waterford and Wexford are hurling again. And that's if they don't have a bye in the first round of next January's Allianz League. Their exits along with the four teams from the Joe McDonagh Cup last Saturday and the six lower-tier finalists this Saturday will bring to 27 the number of counties whose hurling for the year ended in the month of May. Excluding New York, that's 27 from 35 sides. This is exclusive subscriber content. Already a subscriber? Sign in Subscribe to access all of the Irish Examiner. Annual €120€60 Best value Monthly €10€4 / month Unlimited access. Subscriber content. Daily ePaper. Additional benefits.
