Last Sunday Kilkenny defeated Waterford in the first semi-final of this year’s All-Ireland championship.  The win brings the Cats within 70 minutes of the county’s first ever 4-in-a-row.  The only time a hurling 4-in-a-row has been achieved was by Cork between 1941 and 1944.  But….the 1941 hurling championship was severely disrupted by an outbreak of foot and mouth disease and several matches were cancelled including the Leinster Final between Kilkenny and Dublin and the Munster semi-final between Cork and Tipperary.  So if the Cats win on the 6th of September, they can probably argue that their 4-in-a-row is the first that was achieved with a full programme of championship matches…anyway let’s leave that particular debate aside for now

The final result on Sunday was 2-23 to 3-15 and over half of Kilkenny’s scores came from the stick of the sublime Henry Shefflin who hit 1-14 (1-6 from play).  It was Shefflin’s high tally since the 2005 Leinster semi-final when he hit 2-11 against Offaly.  It was also his first goal from play in championship hurling since the 2007 All-Ireland final versus Limerick.

For Waterford, Eoin Kelly scored 1-10 (0-3 from play).  If he had managed one more point, he would have levelled with Joe Canning at the top of the scoring charts.  But, as it stands, the only thing that will prevent Canning being top scorer would be if the semi-final and/or final end in a draw thus giving Shefflin and possibly Eoin Kelly (Tipperary) a chance to overhaul Canning.

Shane Walsh scored 2 goals to add to his one strike against Galway.  In fact Walsh has yet to score a point in championship hurling - his only scores up to now have been goals.

There were no debutants last weekend; however there were a number the previous weekend mainly due to the teams in the seemingly meaningless relegation semi-finals giving some new players a run including:

Offaly (3)

• Odhran Kealey
• Stephen Wynne
• James Gorman

Antrim (1)

• Darren Hamill

Clare (3)

• Conor Cooney
• Pat Donlon
• Conor McNamara

Wexford (1)

• Brendan Hobbs

Waterford (1)

• Shane Casey

Galway (1)

• Eugene McEntee

That brings to 61 the number of newcomers this year.