Cats pounce on their prey

WHEN people awoke from the snorefest of Cork and Kildare, the entertainment resumed in Croke Park yesterday.

Kilkenny and Tipp had started us off in the minor All-Ireland semi-final, some brilliant skill by several of the Kilkenny players confirming my belief that this was the best minor team I’d seen this year, then, after the Cork/Kildare football debacle (with apologies to Conor Counihan, for whom I have great time), we had the real spectacle.

I would definitely say, the first 20 minutes of this game yesterday between Kilkenny and Cork was as good a hurling exhibition as you will ever see anywhere. Not an inch of freedom was given to anyone — we even had a good old-fashioned dust-up, which Michael Wadding had the very good sense to more or less ignore, just getting on with the game without a single yellow card being waved.