Storey: Wexford win gives all counties hope

YOU often hear people hark back to hurling’s glory days, to Limerick and Kilkenny in the 30s, Cork and Tipp in the 40s, Wexford in the 50s, Tipp again in the 60s, Kilkenny and Cork in the 70s, the rise of the underdogs in the 90s, Kilkenny again dominant in the 00s, but in all of those eras it was just a few teams at the top.

Could we be headed now though for a real golden age in hurling, an age when competition is cut-throat across the board, an annual free-for-all mass brawl in both Leinster and Munster as a number of teams jockey for supremacy?

The signal? Well we’ve had a few this year already. Let’s start with last night; it wasn’t a result that rocked the world but Wexford’s one-point win over Kilkenny in the Leinster U-21 hurling championship semi-final is one pointer.