The league is done and dusted, now it’s time to get down to the serious business for Kilkenny’s senior hurlers as this year’s Leinster championship gets underway.
It’s a home draw first for the Cats with UPMC Nowlan Park the backdrop for their opening-round clash with Westmeath. Despite a loss to Limerick in the Allianz Hurling League Division 1 final earlier this month, Kilkenny have looked impressive to date this season but when it comes to Championship hurling, anything goes and with the round-robin nature of the competition, they were looking to get off to the best possible start with a win on home turf.
It was all one-way traffic in Mullingar around this time last year, Kilkenny seeing off Westmeath 5-23 to 1-19, TJ Reid scoring 1-4 in the second half alone in that game.
