We have two live games on KCLR as St. Mullins meets Mount Leinster Rangers in the Carlow Senior Hurling Champions and Kilkenny go up against London in the football All-Ireland junior championship semi-final.
Best of luck to our Football Manager, Christy Walsh, the panel & all the backroom team in the @officialgaa Football All-Ireland Junior Championship semifinal.
— Kilkenny GAA (@KilkennyCLG) July 13, 2023
Tickets ➡️ https://t.co/nD6KAw1xlq
The game will also be broadcast live on @kclr96fm & @clubber TV. pic.twitter.com/2nEcOlCemQ
Up first, it’s a case of “London Calling” for the Cats in the first semi-final of the Junior Championship, while New York meet British Junior Championship side Warwickshire. The winners of Friday night’s games will head to Croke Park on Sunday as the curtain-raiser to the senior football semi-final between Kerry and Derry.
London’s senior side ply their trade in the National Football League and the Tailteann Cup and endured tough outings in both competitions this season. For New York, the Exiles made history earlier this year with their first-ever Connacht Championship victory, defeating Leitrim in the process. The American outfit also gave a spirited display against Carlow in the Tailteann Cup earlier this summer at the preliminary quarter-final stages. Warwickshire compete in the All-Britain Junior Football Championship, where they defeated London after extra time in the final to claim their 6th crown. In all actuality, the big secrecy would generally be over the only Irish team in the competition, Kilkenny.
Cup changes
Previously the rule would see the Leinster junior champions going into the competition but at GAA Congress in 2021, a motion was passed to change the entire structure of the All Ireland Junior Football Championship competition to that of a mostly ‘overseas competition’ along with just one Irish county, Kilkenny. While the Cats are the defending champions, manager Christy Walsh has been telling KCLR this week that the team lining out in Dublin this weekend will be much changed from last year’s All-Ireland champions.
“Compared with last year, we’d have a change in goal, full-back, centre-back, and about six or seven guys would have left the panel for different reasons, since last year. So we’ve had to find replacements for them, and we have. So we’re looking pretty good.”
“We haven’t as much experience, as last year. We had Shane Murphy from Glenmore who would have hurling experience with Paul Murphy, Ciarán Wallace, and that was a big help to us. While we haven’t got the same hurling experience this year, we’ve still got a good panel of players.”
Listen back to the full interview with Christy below on this past week’s edition of Scoreline Extra.
We’ll be live in Abbotstown on Friday evening with Martin Quilty and Michael Aylward to bring you full live commentary of Kilkenny’s clash with London. You can listen to that game here. Should Walsh’s side be victorious, we’ll be back in Dublin on Sunday for another All-Ireland final.
