THIS club hurling championship must be one of the strangest competitions around.

ST PATRICK’S ATHLETIC made it nine league games unbeaten to keep their title hopes with very much alive with a comprehensive victory over UCD at the Belfield Bowl last night.

WEXFORD champions Oulart The Ballagh qualified for the Leinster Club SHC final following a hard-earned victory over Westmeath champions Raharney in a high-scoring match played in dense fog at Cusack Park yesterday.

PRIDE restored and his own record of never having lost a game in Wexford intact. However, as euphoric as the Limerick hurling manager was in the aftermath of this hard-fought qualifier win in terrible weather in Wexford Park on Saturday, Justin McCarthy’s experience in the game was alerting him to bigger challenges next weekend.

WATERFORD last night received a major boost for Sunday’s Munster SHC final against Tipperary at Semple Stadium when co-captain Stephen Molumphy was named to lead the attack in a sector notable again for the exclusion of 2007 Hurler of The Year Dan Shanahan.

IT’s one of the most basic truths in sport – you’ve got to take your chances.

A HUGE boost for the Munster hurling champions as Eoin Kelly makes his first appearance of the year for Tipperary in Sunday’s championship clash with Cork at Semple Stadium.

2008 team colleagues Seán Óg Ó hAilpín and Jerry O’Connor return to the Cork colours for Sunday’s Allianz NHL clash with Limerick at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

TEN of the Cork team that started in last August’s semi-final defeat to Kilkenny, were named in the starting 15 last night for Cork’s NHL Division One trip to Clare on Sunday.

A YOUNG footballer, Micheal Roche, from the Glynn-Barntown club, has successfully appealed against a 48-week ban for an alleged assault on a referee in a minor club game in Wexford.

DUBLIN will have to plan without full-back Kevin Ryan — out with a hamstring injury — for their Allianz NHL league clash with Cork at Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sunday. But the Dubs are hopeful centre-back Tomás Brady and midfielder Johnny McCaffrey will have recovered from knocks sustained when, respectively, assisting Na Fianna and winners Lucan Sarsfields in the Dublin U-21HC final last Saturday.

Oulart-the-Ballagh 1-16 St Anne’s (Rathangan) 1-11

ALL-IRELAND hurling champions Kilkenny make three changes in personnel and five positional switches from the win over Offaly for tomorrow’s Leinster hurling final with an unchanged Wexford.

NATIONAL LEAGUE champions Kilkenny have made wholesale changes on their team to play Galway in the All Ireland Hurling quarter-final in Thurles on Saturday.

DARREN O’SULLIVAN, the 20-year-old whiz kid from Glenbeigh, will make his provincial senior championship debut when Kerry take on Tipperary in the Bank of Ireland Munster SFC semi-final at Fitzgerald Stadium, Killarney on Sunday.

Wexford 2-31 Laois 3-14

KEN McGRATH is set to make his first start for Waterford in the current National Hurling League campaign when the Decies make the long trip north to Portaferry to take on pointless Down, on Sunday.

Waterford 1-13 Wexford 0-14

UCD 0-15 Oulart-the-Ballagh 1-9

There were some top quality performances at the National Indoor Championships in Nenagh today with sprinters in particular, catching the eye.

Oulart-The-Ballagh 1-17 Rathnure 1-10

THE irrepressible Declan Browne was again the inspiration as Tipperary added to Waterford’s woes in the Allianz NFL at Clonmel yesterday.

Arles/Kilcruise 1-9 O’Hanrahans 1-8

Cork 2-11, Galway 2-10

Tommy Kiely, driving a Ford Escort, took a comfortable victory in the Cashel Single Stage Rally. At the finish of the three timed runs he had a 32 second winning margin over the Escort of James Coleman.