Kilkenny defeated Antrim in the Electric Minor Championship in the GAA National Games Development Centre on Saturday last to guarantee a Quarter Final at the least in this year’s Leinster competition
The young cats had a very comfortable 2-21 to 1-8 Victory over the Saffrons on Saturday in Abbottstown, Antrim played well for the first fifteen minutes and played with a sweeper which took Kilkenny a while to get to grips with it, but when they did they dominated the game. Kilkenny went into the break 0-11 to 1-2 ahead and that lead would not be relinquished in the second half.
Speaking with KCLR’s Adrian Ronan after the game, Bergin was satisfied “We knew Antrim was going to come with a sweeper and we knew it was going to a little bit of getting used to eventually we got to grips with it, first fifteen minutes Antrim did very very well they got a great goal, disappointing from our side but a good goal from Antrim’s perspective, once we settled down I stand to be corrected but I don’t think Antrim scored after that goal in the first half”
“We settled down and started to tag on the scores so we’re happy on that front in the second half hurling into the wind suited us a bit more, the ball was holding up a little bit and balls were going into the forward line and the lads were making hay inside”
“We were kind of giving them an outlet for the puck outs and we said lets just push up and see what happens in terms of will they go long and how we’d deal with the long ball and we dealt very well with the long ball, half back line was stond under the ball and we got under the breaks, we started to win back momentum in many way and took it from there. Very happy and happy to get a wide spread of scores as well”.
“We’re trying to play to our strenghts, the lads are able to move, we’ve got greta pace, when lads carry the ball thungs happen and they’re opening up gaps in the opposition team and to be honest there was times there when maybe we could have scored a few more scores and a few goals from those overlaps that were created”.
“We are under no illusions, Kilkenny and Galway pleayed each other in an U16 development squad match last August and the score was something crazy in favour of Galway. We’ll find out very very quickly where we are at now, we feel we have made great strides the lads have put a super effort in there a great bunch of lads, brilliant attitude and they want to learn ebery day they go out”.
“We’ll do lots of learning next Friday and we look forward to it,we are guaranteed a quarter-final place now, badsically the winner of the match on Friday will top the group and go straight to the semi-final, both teams are still in the competition but I’d imgainew both teams will want to go and win it next Friday”.
