Byrne boost for Tipperary champions

KILKENNY’S Graigue Ballycallan suffered a double whammy yesterday with confirmation that county hurler Denis Byrne and camogie star Sinead Millea are leaving the club.

Byrne is transferring to Tipperary’s Mullinahone with Millea also moving to the Premier county’s Cashel King Cormacs.

Mullinahone club secretary Jackie Bolger has confirmed that Byrne, who captained Kilkenny to All-Ireland honours in 2000, has signed and has purchased a house in the parish.

“I want to emphasis that it was Denis who approached the club about moving. He had been thinking about it over the last four months and finally made up his mind recently.

It’s no secret that Byrne was hugely disappointed at losing his place on the Kilkenny team for the 2002 championship, but a serious hand injury and a subsequent dip in form didn’t help his cause.

Once he is a fully fledged Mullinahone player there is every chance Byrne, who was a Cork-based garda for a number of years before moving into the family building business, will make himself available to the Tipp senior selectors.

Sinead Millea, employed as a teacher in Clonmel, will forsake her title-winning colleagues in the St Brigid’s Ballycallan Club in the pursuit of further honours with Cashel King Cormacs camogie club for the coming year.