On another sunny Monday morning across Kilkenny and Carlow, let’s take a look at the sporting headlines for KCLR and Scoreline.ie.
Carlow character praised
If you’re in Kilkenny or Carlow and have been living under a rock or had the radio switched off, you may have missed out on Carlow being crowned Joe McDonagh Cup champions for 2023. For local listeners, it was one of the most engrossing games we’ve had in years, in particular for Carlow fans – you can listen to it below, complete with extra time, tears and all.
You had Offaly with a red card in the first half, Carlow up by a few points, crusing to a win in normal time, Offaly peg it back, they’re going to win it, Carlow peg it back, we wind up with extra time, Carlow go ahead, Offaly go ahead, Offaly look like they’re going to win it, then it’s going to penalties, then Chris Nolan hits the last point of the day at the death and Carlow are champions.
We’ll hear more on the game on Full Time this evening just after 6pm with Martin Quilty, but before that, we spoke with cup-winning manager Tom Mullally who was full of praise for the character shown by his Carlow side in claiming a return to the Leinster senior hurling championship for 2024. You can hear his thoughts on the the latest Scoreline Extra podcast below.
Then Kilkenny went to Wexford Park and even a hat-trick from Eoin Cody couldn’t prevent a Wexford win. After an early lead for Kilkenny, Wexford battled back into it and in the end, even when you thought they were on the ropes, had just enough in the tank to take the win. Lee Chin play a game of games for the county, they survive the drop, Westmeath will be relegated to the Joe McDonagh for next year and Kilkenny go on to face Galway in the Leinster final.
For Kilkenny manager Derek Lyng, they’ll regroup, refocus and get ready for next month’s final. You can hear reaction from that game on Scoreline Extra below or listen back to the nine-goal thriller here.
The Munster championship continued to serve up a treat too; Waterford with a good win over Tipperary to end their summer on a high while Cork fans will be hugely disappointed in their All-Ireland exit but there’s a clear reason why Limerick are All-Ireland champions and are chasing a fifth Munster title in a row now. Their one point win means they play Clare in next month’s final, Tipperary as third in Munster will play Offaly; Dublin finishing third in Leinster means they head to Netwatch Cullen Park in three weeks for the preliminary quarter-final against Carlow.
Schools camogie
The KCLR Cumann na mBunscoil finals for Kilkenny took place in Gowran yesterday. A long day, busy day, but a super day of schools camogie.
We’ll have loads of photos and more online this morning but congratulations to Roinn F winners Moneenroe, Paulstown/Goresbridge who claimed the Roinn A title. St. Aidan’s in Kilmanagh who were Roinn C winners, Coon-Muckalee took the Roinn B title and then Clara went for goals over points to take home this year’s Roinn A title. We’ll have more reaction on this week’s Camán Caint camogie podcast, out tomorrow.
Football recap
The finalists for division 1 of this year’s senior football league in Carlow have been set. Éire Óg are there thanks to a 1-9 to 1-7 win over Palatine last night. They’ll join Tinryland who had a 3-10 to 1-6 win over St. Patrick’s.
The Division 3 final between Rathvilly and Leighlinbridge has been fixed for this coming Friday evening, 7.30pm in Netwatch Cullen Park.
And if you missed them over the weekend, Carlow are this year’s Leinster ladies junior football champions, they took a big win over Kilkenny in Laois Hire O’Moore Park yesterday afternoon while Saturday evening saw St. Patrick’s take this year’s JJ Kavanagh & Sons Junior Football Championship title in Kilkenny with a 2-9 to 0-13 win over Bennettsbridge at UMPC Nowlan Park. The senior final in Kilkenny did not go ahead.
Freebooters claim KCLR McCalmont Cup
Locally first and Freebooters are the KCLR McCalmont Cup champions for 2023. A 3-0 lead at half time turned into a 5-0 win for Booters, Sean Bolger netting twice. We’ll hear more from that game later and this evening on Full Time. Freebooters will face Callan United on Wednesday evening in the semi-finals of the Mock Lawlor Cup.
Then, the Premier League wrapped up on Sunday. Despite Leicester beating West Ham 2-1, they fall into the Championship seven years after winning the Premier League thanks to Everton’s 1-0 win over Bournemouth. Leeds also head for the drop and finish the season in 19th, losing out to Spurs 4-1 yesterday. Man United’s comeback win over Fulham means they will finish in third, Newcastle already assured of a Champions League spot will finish fourth.
Champions Man City ended their season with defeat to Brentford but Brentford miss out on a chance to play European football. Southampton and Liverpool played out a wild 4-4 draw while Arsenal recovered from the disappointment of losing out on the league title enough to hammer Wolves 5-0.
But you know what? There’s only 75 days to go until the Premier League is back.
We’ll leave you with this one, a throwback to Saturday night and the celebratory homecoming for Carlow’s senior hurlers. They go again on 17 June.
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