Injuries sour Kilkenny's five-goal demolition of Antrim
FIVE STAR CATS: Antrim's Ryan Elliott tackles Martin Keoghan of Kilkenny. Pic Credit: Leah Scholes, Inpho.
A glut of goals in the Kilkenny city sunshine and ultimately a 32-point win for the hosts but injuries to key players took some of the gloss off this Round 1 demolition.
Kilkenny, chasing a five-in-a-row of provincial titles this season, were always likely to win this Leinster opener but knocks to Eoin Murphy, Adrian Mullen and Eoin Cody were less than helpful with next Sunday's trip to Galway in mind.
Goalkeeper Murphy was taken off at half-time after being apparently assessed for a head injury while attackers Mullen and Cody appeared to pick up leg injuries with Cody clutching his ankle before hobbling off.
On the plus side, veteran talisman TJ Reid looked sharp in his time on the pitch, sniping 1-5, and was rested early in the second-half as the game was already up.
Speedster Owen Wall, from the nearby O'Loughlin Gaels club and fresh off a terrific 2023 club campaign, made a big impact when he came on with two brilliant goals and 2-2 in total.
Billy Drennan similarly caught the eye after his introduction and the free-taker finished up as the top scorer with 1-6 while Gearoid Dunne, who hit four goals recently for the Kilkenny U-20s against Laois, registered another major.
It was all too easy for a finish up for Kilkenny who had a dozen different scorers in total and a whopping 20 wides as well as a couple of efforts that dropped short.
Antrim, who will host Wexford next Saturday at Corrigan Park, had a decent opening quarter hour or so and trailed by just a point at that stage but they will reflect on a difficult second quarter when the game ultimately got away from them.
Cian Kenny's 16th minute point for the Cats began a period of dominance that resulted in the hosts outscoring Antrim by 1-10 to 0-3 before the interval.
Kilkenny took a while to find their feet initially and a couple of passages of play highlighted this.
In the eighth minute, for instance, a quartet of Kilkenny players tossed the ball around in the danger zone, a move that ended with Martin Keoghan hammering a shot wide. It felt like a couple of passes less would have done the trick while, three minutes later, Keoghan again had a score attempt that this time ended with a miscued strike.
Then when Kilkenny were awarded a 22nd minute penalty following a foul by the goalkeeper on Keoghan - resulting in a black card for 'keeper Ryan Elliott - Reid couldn't convert as substitute goalie Tiernan Smyth pulled off a terrific flying save.
Smyth was rewarded for his initial excellence by being kept on the pitch after the sin-bin period for Elliott was up.
Kilkenny soon found their groove though and with Antrim finding it difficult to get the ball out of their own half and to overcome the Cats' heavy press, chance after chance was created.
Nine different Kilkenny players got on the scoresheet in the first-half, the same amount of wides they tallied, as they surged 1-15 to 0-7 clear at the interval.
Kilkenny moved up a gear after the restart and laid siege to the Antrim goal for the majority of the second-half.
Wall and Drennan made powerful impacts as subs and Antrim were simply unable to prevent the black and amber deluge of scoring, particularly in the final quarter.
Kilkenny outscored Antrim by 3-7 to 0-2 in the closing 10 minutes with Dunne, Wall and Drennan all increasing their takings with handsome goals, Drennan rounding out the goal-scoring with a converted penalty in the 71st minute.
B Drennan (1-6, 1-0 pen, 0-2f, 0-1 65), O Wall (2-2), TJ Reid (1-5, 0-3f), G Dunne (1-1), C Kenny (0-4), J Donnelly, M Keoghan (0-3), P Deegan (0-2), A Mullen, R Reid, M Carey, S Murphy (0-1 each).
C Cunning (0-7, 7f), J McNaughton (0-2), C McCann, N Elliott, E Campbell, C Bohill (0-1 each).
E Murphy; M Butler, H Lawlor, S Murphy; D Blanchfield, P Deegan, M Carey; C Kenny, R Reid; A Mullen, J Donnelly, T Phelan; M Keoghan, E Cody, TJ Reid.
G Dunne for Mullen (15), A Tallis for E Murphy (h/t-f/t blood), O Wall for Cody (39), B Drennan for TJ Reid (45), B Ryan for Phelan (54), T Walsh for Butler (62).
R Elliott; P Burke, R McGarry, P Duffin; S Walsh, E Campbell, C Bohill; J McNaughton, N O'Connor; M Bradley, N Elliott, N McKenna; C Cunning, C McCann, S Elliott.
T Smyth for McKenna (21), McKenna for R Elliott (33), J McLaughlin for Bradley (h/t), R McCloskey for Walsh (58), C Boyd for McKenna (60).
Shane Hynes (Galway).
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