Question: Which first choice Kilkenny forward went 1 year without scoring in championship hurling?

Answer: Martin ‘Gorta’ Comerford.

Before last Sunday, Comerford’s last score was a point against Wexford in the Leinster Championship Final on Jul 6, 2008.  He was held scoreless against Cork in the 2008 All-Ireland semi-final, against Waterford in the All-Ireland final and also against Galway recently.  So not many would have backed him to be Kilkenny’s top scorer against Dublin.  For the Dubs, Alan McCrabbe scored 0-11 (0-3 from play).

In Phase I of the All Ireland qualifiers, Cork had a 13 point win over Offaly with Aisake Ó hAilpín scoring 2-1 and Laois edged out Antrim by 3 points.  Top scorer for Laois was Willie Hyland with 0-7 (0-3 from play).

Antrim and Offaly now await the losers of Phase II of the qualifiers (Galway v Clare, Limerick v Wexford).  There will be 2 relegation “semi-finals” with the losers playing the relegation final to see who gets demoted to the Christy Ring Cup for next year.  At least that’s how I think it works.  Antrim are claiming that they are entitled to a 3 year stint in the Leinster Championship under the new format.  We shall see what happens - but don’t you just wish that problems like this could have been prevented with a little foresight…….

Five hurlers made their championships debuts last weekend.

Laois (2)

• Eoin Costelloe
• Brian Dunne

Cork (1)

• Tadhg Og Murphy

Offaly (2)

• Colm Coughlan
• Derek Morkan

This brings to 44 the number of newcomers to championship hurling in 2009.