Carlow’s talisman on the senior hurling front and St. Mullins clubman Marty Kavanagh is to skip this year’s club hurling championship in the county.
Edging closer to the all-time leading scorer title for the county this year, Kavanagh confirmed to Scoreline that he’s set to depart to the US with a return to hurling pencilled in for next year.
“I’m finished club hurling for the summer, I’ll be back at the end of the year. Unfortunately, I won’t get to play, but that’s the way it is”, he told KCLR’s Brendan Hennessy in the wake of Carlow’s win over Offaly in the fifth round of the Joe McDonagh Cup at the weekend.
“I’ve got a few niggles now and want to mind the body. I’m trying to think about next year already.”
Awfully anticlimatic
Carlow did their part of a hard task on Saturday in getting a win over Offaly in Tullamore but needed to rely on Antrim beating Kerry in order to secure a place in this year’s Joe McDonagh Cup final.
While few expected it at the time, it was Kerry who would come away from Corrigan Park with the points, leaving Antrim and Kerry to battle it out for this year’s crown and a possible place in this year’s All-Ireland series.
“It’s devastating, a complete anticlimax to come up (to Tullamore), win the match then hear the news, but it is what it is. It goes back to the Kerry match, it’s our own fault”, says Kavanagh.
“It’s nice to finish with a win, especially up in Offaly and it’s something to build on going forward. We’ll take it on the chin and go again.”
“We were brilliant (against Offaly), we were very up for it. Regardless of whatever happened up the North, we wanted to just be positive and get the win. If things went our way, great, if not it’s something to build on for next year and we’ll take it forward.”
