Kilkenny footballers rail against decision to withdraw from league

Kilkenny senior footballers Paul Donnelly and JJ Grace have slammed the county board’s decision to withdraw the team from next year’s Allianz Football League.

Grace, the team’s GPA representative last year, described the move as a “kick in the balls” while Donnelly insists it is a retrograde step.

Donnelly and Grace have also claimed the Kilkenny players were not consulted before Noreside top brass revealed their plans at a county board meeting on Monday night.

Kilkenny have also pulled out of next year’s Leinster U21 and junior football championships.

The Cats will instead play in a new British championship alongside teams from London and other parts of England and Scotland.

The competition will be run off on a round-robin basis, with entry to the All-Ireland junior championship on offer for the winners.

But Donnelly, 28, points to the example of Tipperary as an example of what can be achieved with proper underage structures in place in a hurling stronghold, with the Premier County winning the 2011 All-Ireland minor football championship. Donnelly, the longest-serving player on the Kilkenny senior football panel, also revealed how he found out about the team’s withdrawal from the league through the media.

He said: “I’m disappointed with the way the county board went behind our backs. It’s a step backwards and that’s no disrespect to the British championship. How are we going to improve with a step backwards?”

Donnelly has warned of mass retirements from the Kilkenny senior football squad and believes that it will be extremely difficult to pull a squad together when players are committed to the club hurling scene next summer.

He said: “If it’s June, most players are already committed to hurling. The way I see it, it’s easy to play hurling for Kilkenny when you’re that good because the motivation each year is to come back and play games because you’re so successful. All the boys that play football take heavy defeats but still come back for more. They’re heroes in my eyes but it would knock your confidence big time.

“I’m in shock. I was talking to a lot of players this morning and a lot of them are not going to commit next year. That might be heat of the moment talk but who’ll even want to play us in challenge games?

“This thing is bad form from the county board, going behind our backs without even talking to us.”

Grace, who retired from intercounty football after the 2012 campaign, revealed: “We always knew that something was going on but I thought some of the other junior teams in Ireland would be entering teams in the British championship. I didn’t think it was just us going over. It’s a kick in the balls.”