St Kieran’s braced for Ard Scoil challenge
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.”
That success last April was St Kieran’s first since 2004 and represented a significant milestone for the school.
“It was the first Croke Cup that we’d won since the boarding stopped in the school at the end of 2004”, says Hogan. “It was very important to get back winning trophies. Schools like Castlecomer, Kilkenny CBS, Dublin Colleges and Good Counsel had all won Leinster titles and the standards had risen around the province.”
In order to retain their title though, Hogan feels his team needs to raise the standards of their previous performances.
“We’ve yet to really put in one good solid hour of hurling. We won matches very well in the league but haven’t repeated that in championship. We’re hitting a lot of wides and our attack seems to be the problem as they haven’t clicked as a unit. Hopefully that can change tomorrow.”
