ALL SQUARE at Nowlan Park yesterday, with 6,974 spectators seeing favourites Ballyhale Shamrocks level the Kilkenny SHC final deep in injury-time, depriving underdogs James Stephens a famous victory.

BALLYHALE Shamrocks qualified for the Kilkenny SHC final yesterday with a hugely impressive win over last year’s champions O’Loughlin Gaels.

LOOKS like it was a cracker, doesn’t it, 36 scores in a 60-minute game between two of the premier clubs in the game over the past several years?

ON THE basis of what was the more impressive of the two semi-final victories, Ballyhale Shamrocks will be fancied to follow the lead of the Kilkenny hurlers and make it four-in-a-row in Sunday week’s domestic championship decider.

FIVE minutes into the second-half of the second Kilkenny SHC semi-final in yesterday’s double-header at Nowlan Park, it looked like a shock (pardon the pun) was on the cards as Carrickshock took a surprise if well-merited one-point lead.

Kilkenny 3-20 Tipperary 2-11

Waterford IT 1-18 Cork IT 1-10

Waterford IT 2-14 Cork IT 1-9

James Stephens 1-18 Ballyhale Shamrocks 2-12

Ballyhale Shamrocks 3-20 St. Martin’s 3-8

THE Kilkenny team to play Galway in Sunday’s Erin All-Ireland U-21 HC final at the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick (2pm), is the same as that which trounced Antrim in the semi-final.

THE struggle between club and county continues in Antrim. With the county U21 hurlers due to play Kilkenny in the All-Ireland semi-final in Navan on Saturday, several clubs are reluctant to release their players because of county championship matches the following day.

WIT 0-10 UCD 0-5

Kilkenny 3-21 Tipperary 1-6

Newtownshandrum 16-3 Cork 14-3

A DONEGAL GAA player has been suspended for a year following an incident in a Senior Football League match last June.

Kilkenny 3-15, Tipperary 1-7

Kilkenny 2-13