Henry Shefflin and Martin Comerford still strike fear in Kilkenny final

The first time they shared a pitch together wasn’t at Croke Park or Nowlan Park but at Buckley Park, and they weren’t wearing black and amber but black and white. It was a Leinster schools soccer final against Drimnagh Castle CBS and the St Kieran’s College strike force consisted of a red-haired lump of a lad from south Kilkenny and a rail-thin youth, a year older, from town.

Henry Shefflin scored a goal. Martin Comerford, by far the more talented soccer player, created it for him. The game ended in a draw; Drimnagh Castle won the replay in Dublin. And really that ought to have been where this story ended, with Shefflin spending the rest of his sporting existence as a big and slow, if accurate, forward for Ballyhale Shamrocks and Comerford passing a decade of Sunday mornings scoring goals for Freebooters in the Kilkenny and District League, watched by excited attendances consisting of two men and a dog.

But it didn’t. That was 19 years and a combined 16 All Ireland medals ago. Goes to show you never can tell.