The senior league gets underway on Friday night with James Stephens facing Graigue Ballycallan at 7 o’clock, while at the same time, Bennettsbridge takes on Erins Own in Freshford.
We will have full live coverage of Erins Own and Bennetsbridge with reports coming from James Stephens and Graigue Ballycallan.
New Erins Own manager Sean Dempsey told Full Time that his players are looking forward to getting their season started.
See also: Your guide to the opening round of the Kilkenny senior, intermediate and junior championship
“We are really looking forward to it. For me, it’s the first year managing these lads, so having the long lead-in for me, is not a problem is actually it probably helped. Instead of going in April or May.”
“It’s been okay, nearly everyone is home from holidays, so we’re going okay.”
Erins Own went out to Tullaroan at the quarter-final stages of the Championship last year, in a three-point defeat. However, Dempsey admitted to not thinking about anything else, other than the task at hand on Friday night against last seasons league finalists;
“Obviously, we’re hopeful that we can get a positive result, it’s not going to be easy. We have done a bit of dual diligence and had to look at the squad. They have good players. Good players coming back from the county setup as well.”
“It will be nip and tuck but that’s the sort of game that you probably want going into playing the Shamrocks the following week. We’re hopeful that we can perform.”
“It was always about beating Bennetsbridge in the first round, we have not looked beyond that at any stage.”
Listen back to the full interview below on Full Time: