Kilkenny lost their All-Ireland junior crown after a one-point loss to New York at GAA HQ yesterday
Unfortunately for Kilkenny footballers, they fell to New York in injury time and surrendered their All-Ireland Junior Football title to the Exiles after a single-point loss.
A hard-fought victory over London on Friday proved to be critical to The Cat’s chances of retaining the cup, with the first half proving to be particularly difficult.
After some changes, Kilkenny fought back from a five-point deficit, with help from a Mick Kenny goal. Ultimately though it was not to be despite leading by a point in injury time, Shay McElligot and Brian Coughlan put two over to send the cup Stateside.
See also: New York win their first-ever Junior All-Ireland title by a single point at the expense of Kilkenny
Speaking after the game to KCLR manager Christy Walsh was disappointed “I don’t know whether I wanted the extra time or not but I thought that’s the way it was going”
“The harm was really done in the first half, we were very passive, we were very dead in ourselves, that’s the result of Friday night we had a tough game against London that went down to the wire and that took a lot out of us and that’s what we were afraid of and that’s the way it worked out, to be honest, it took us a long time to get going we were tired looking for a long time”
Chances not taken
Kilkenny had chances in the first half but they didn’t take them and Walsh lamented on them “We took a lot of wrong decisions in the first half, we were caught in possession a lot we weren’t playing well, there was no energy about us in the first half really. New York missed a lot too early on, five points of a lead we were in real bother at half time but we made a few substitutions and that gave us a bit of life and we got back into and could have won it in the end”
“I suppose it’s to find the balance, we wanted our big men on the pitch, we did go ahead of New York, we were in a good position and our subs were bringing a bit of energy and go forward ball and we were scoring. They took their chances and kept going, they weren’t that far off us last year so good luck to them”
“It’s very good, we had over forty training every night, every challenge we played we had two different fifteen for two different halves, it says how much of an interest is there, all the panel was here today, it was great up to ten minutes ago [he joked] We’ll see, that’s it for this year and that’s the way it worked out”
“I don’t blame referees anyway for anything, I thought we might have had one or two decisions, the one in the corner I think was wide first I think the linesman called we couldn’t really argue with that. Look if you want to get picky and everyone could trace every free back to something, I suppose over the hour we didn’t play well enough, three points in the first half, a lot of wides as I said earlier we were very passive and standing off fealls and weren’t alert to their kick outs or their movements, they had more of a step in the first half. I was just commenting that it was the same as last year, we had a tough game on Friday night and it went all the way and it was tough going and that’s what we were afraid of and that’s our excuse for the first half anyway. Look overall we can only congratulate New York and good luck to them”
Listen to the full interview at the link below
