Thanks to the bank holiday weekend, it’s the middle of the week already. Let’s take a look at some of the stories making headlines for KCLR and Scoreline.ie today.
When the Cats are at home…
Beginning with Gaelic Games and this morning sees Kilkenny GAA’s official launch of the Allianz Hurling League season. The Cats are at home to Tipperary this Sunday in Derek Lyng’s first game in charge at UPMC Nowlan Park. While Kilkenny were made to work for their win against Antrim in Belfast on Saturday, Tipperary had no problem blowing Laois away as the notched up 2-32 on the opening day of the league.
I mentioned it yesterday morning but this game should have an added championship feel to it even though we’re only into the second week of February. It throws in at 1.30pm on Sunday and we’ll have full coverage of the game with Adrian Ronan, Michael Walsh and the Scoreline sports team on Sunday afternoon with thanks to Laharts, the home of Volkswagen and Skoda in Kilkenny.
Two-time All-Ireland winner with Kilkenny Michael Walsh is a fan of the work Liam Cahill is doing at Tipperary and reckons this game can really show where both counties are at under new management teams. You can read more about that later.
Plenty of GAA action this evening
Last night saw SETU Carlow’s footballers well beaten by DCU Dóchus Éireann in the Electric Ireland Higher Education Junior Football Championship. That game finished 3-21 to 1-03 in favour of the Dublin side.
Tonight sees SETU take on Maynooth University in the junior hurling championship from half past seven.
While they’re not involved, Carlow will host the semi-finals of this year’s Electric Ireland Sigerson Cup later this evening. Netwatch Cullen Park provides the back drop for the last four in this year’s colleges football competition with UL taking on DCU Dóchas Éireann at a quarter past six, followed by the meeting of TU Dublin and UCC at 8pm.
If you’re planning on heading along, it is a fully ticketed event and all tickets have to be bought in advance – i.e. there are no sales on the turnstyles tonight – with tickets available from universe.com.
There’s also one game tonight in the Kilkenny senior football league as Danesfort and Erins Own meet in their rescheduled league opener. Throw-in is 8pm at Danesfort.
Ashling Murphy remembered
The Ashbourne weekend is upon us with the finals of the Ashbourne Cup, Purcell Cup and the three remaining divisional cups at college or university level set to be contested at UCD across Saturday and Sunday.
While there will be plenty of representation from Kilkenny and Carlow club players in the competition, including SETU Carlow’s own side in the Purcell Cup semi-finals, the CCAO have decided to honour the memory of Ashling Murphy by naming the division 5 cup – previously untitled – after the Kilcorman/Killoughy clubwoman whose death just over a year ago was a story that dominated the airwaves and front pages.
You can hear all about it on the latest Caman Caint podcast- now an award-winning podcast very much in its own right – with season 4 starting last night on Scoreline.ie.
Strong Mullins team for Cheltenham
Record-breaking trainer Willie Mullins is on course to take one of his biggest and strongest teams ever to next month’s Cheltenham Festival.
He completed the full set of Championship races at the Festival a year ago when Energuemene won the Champion Chase – and he has huge hopes in nearly all the feature races this time. Mullins has been telling Mike Vince they’ll likely have big numbers travelling but it’s not always plain sailing. More on that story for you later this morning.
Schools Success
Congratulations to Castlecomer Community School, they’ve taken the 2nd year footballers’ South Leinster title, beating Arklow yesterday 6-11 to 5-7 in a goal-heavy game.
And if you missed it yesterday, the winner of the David Buggy Motors Kilkenny Sport Star award for January is the Colaiste Abhainn Rí Callan senior camogie team who, among other things put in the hard yards to earn a Leinster title, come through an All-Ireland senior C quarter-final and set themselves up with an All-Ireland semi-final just last weekend albeit it has to go to a replay but they’re putting in the work on and off the field in the school and it’s obviously paying off in the support they’re getting.
Wembley or bust
The Hollywood dream is over for the mighty Wrexham who went down 3-1 to Sheffield United last night in their fourth-round FA Cup replay. All the more heartbreaking for Wrexham fans is that the goals game in the 94th and 96th minutes, well into injury time, with the game looking like extra time and potential penalties were on the cards.
Kilkenny’s Tom O’Connor was introduced by Wrexham with about 15 minutes to go but couldn’t repeat the heroics of last week.
There was better news for another Kilkenny man, however, as Gavan Holohan played the full 90 minutes for Grimsby Town as they caused one of the upsets of the night with a strong 3-0 win over Luton Town.
There’s one remaining replay tonight, with Sunderland welcoming Premier League side Fulham to the Stadium of Light. Kick-off is at 7.45, and the winners will be at home to Leeds.
Old Trafford hosts the first of two Premier League meetings in the space of five days of Manchester United and Leeds tonight. After Monday’s sacking of Jesse Marsch, Leeds are under the temporary stewardship of Michael Skubala. A United win would see them pull level on points with second-placed Manchester City in the table. Kick off is at 8pm.
West Brom boss Carlos Corberan has removed himself from the running to replace Marsch at Leeds. He’s signed a three-year extension at the Hawthorns.
Le Bron leads the way
Le Bron James has become the NBA’s all-time leading points scorer.
The 38-year-old Los Angeles Lakers star eclipsed Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s 39-year-old record by reaching a mark of 38,388 points in a game against Oklahoma City Thunder.
Get more stories like these in our on-air updates across the day on KCLR or on the KCLR app.
