In the wake of a night that saw plenty of discussion about Kilkenny and Carlow’s hurling defeats at the weekend and a first Liverpool goal for Cody Gakpo, let’s take a look at some of the headlines on KCLR and Scoreline.ie for your Tuesday morning.
Fundamental woes?
Beginning with Gaelic Games and eight-time All-Ireland winner Aidan Fogarty has been telling KCLR that it was the fundamentals that let Kilkenny down in Sunday’s hurling league defeat to Tipperary.
Kilkenny slipped to a six-point defeat to Liam Cahill’s side at UPMC Nowlan Park but will meet again this weekend in aid of the Dillon Quirke Foundation. Speaking to Martin Quilty on last evening’s Full Time, Fogarty says for some of Kilkenny’s play, it’s a work in progress. You can hear the full interview in the first segment of the show below.
On the Carlow side of things, our own analyst Terence Kelly echoed manager Tom Mullally’s sentiments about honest performances from the inter-county hurlers this season.
He was responding to comments by Mullally after defeat to Kerry at the weekend, and we mentioned this yesterday, that the criteria for 2023 was that players wanted to play for the county and had to abide by the standards required to play for the county.
Still expecting the return of more names to the Carlow senior fold, he told Full Time that should three or four pieces of the jigsaw fall into place,we should see a better run in this year’s Joe McDonagh Cup – you can hear that interview on the latest Full Time podcast below.
Allaho out
In racing, Willie Mullins will be without the services of Allaho for this year’s Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham with the local champion trainer confirming the two-time winner of the race will be out for the remainder of the racing season. Allaho would have been heavily favoured to complete at Thursday hat-trick at Chelteham this year but found to have rare bleed on his abdomen over the weekend.
Describing the discovery as potentially fatal, Allaho will set out the remainder of the current season and hopefully returns to action next season. Mullins won’t be without entries to the Ryanair Chase with Blue Lord moving to joint favourite.
Kehoe capped again
In basketball, Old Leighlin’s Jack Kehoe has been named as part of Paul Kelleher’s 17-strong Ireland Under 18 men’s squad for the upcoming Four Nations tournament in Cardiff. It’s a midweek competition in April all as part of the preparations for the FIBA Under 18 European Championships. Kehoe was also included in last year’s European’s squad selection.
Liverpool back to their best?
It might be too early to suggest Liverpool are back to their best, but a first-half goal for Mo Salah that looked like vintage Liverpool counter-attacking delight was followed by a first club goal for January signing Cody Gakpo as Liverpool beat Everton 2-0 to go ninth in the Premier League last night, nine points off the top four with a game in hand.
Sean Dyche will be disappointed given the Everton performance against Arsenal but they never got going at all. For Liverpool, it’s Newcastle and Real Madrid up next, two massive games.
There is Champions League action tonight for Spurs who going through something of an injury crisis with Rodrigo Bentancur the latest big name out. He’s gone for the rest of the seaosn with an ACL injury. Spurs meet AC Milan later while the tie of the round sees PSG take on Bayern in Paris.
Get these stories and more across the day on KCLR and here on Scoreline.ie.
