St Kieran’s braced for Ard Scoil challenge

THE arrival of silverware this week to St Kieran’s College was nothing new but the sport where it was achieved provided plenty novelty. On Wednesday the school captured the Leinster Colleges U14B football crown with a decisive success over Kilcock (Kildare) by 3-12 to 0-4.

Tomorrow though, in Semple Stadium, they return to what they do best. With 51 Leinster titles and 17 All-Ireland triumphs, St Kieran’s are the market leaders in national second-level hurling. Their quest to acquire another All-Ireland crown will require claiming the scalp of an Árd Scoil Rís team who have hugely impressed St Kieran’s coach Tom Hogan.

“They say the statistics don’t lie and Árd Scoil back that up. We’ve both played Charleville and Castlecomer in our last two games but if you look at it they’ve won those games by far bigger margins than we have. Having lost to us last year, they will have huge motivation for this game and will probably feel that they should have won out last year.”