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.