Aussie-bound tyro Kilkenny available for Castleknock

Aussie Rules-bound Ciaran Kilkenny will play at least one more game of Gaelic football before he links up with the Hawthorn club next month.

Last Sunday, the former Dublin minor, U21 and senior ace helped Castleknock to victory in their initial football sortie into Leinster fare, blitzing Carlow’s Ballinabranna by 5-15 to 0-7 in their junior provincial clash at Bagenalstown.

The 19-year-old, who featured in the Dublin starting line-up in the All-Ireland semi-final loss to Mayo, lined out at wing-forward in the first half and subsequently at midfield in the comprehensive demolition of the Barrowside outfit.

And now Kilkenny’s side face a second-round test against the Wicklow champions on Sunday week.

“Ciaran Kilkenny is not due to go to Australia until the middle of next month, so there should be no problem about him in playing in our next match in Leinster,” said Castleknock chairman Niall Tutty.

“Ciaran is hoping to get in as many games of Gaelic football as possible before he leaves to be as well prepared as he can for the very intense pre-season training that Aussie players have to go through each year. He played a major part in our win over Ballinabranna and it will be great to have him available for the next match.”

In the event of the Dublin 15 club overcoming their Wicklow opponents, they would take on Meath junior champions Ratoath in the provincial semi-final stage on November 11.

“Obviously we’d love to go as far as possible in Leinster, but we don’t know if we’d have Ciaran available if we did manage to get past the Wicklow champions,” remarked Tutty.

“But we just want to focus on our match on Sunday week.”

Commenting on the clash with Ballinabranna, Tutty said: “It was a bit of a trip into the unknown for us as we had never played in the Leinster club football competition before.

“Our only previous experience of playing outside Dublin was in the Leinster club junior hurling championship four years ago when we beat a team from Wicklow but lost to a team from Offaly in the second round.

“However, the fact we’d a good win in the Dublin junior final against Raheny provided confidence going into the match against Ballinabranna.”