Brian Kennedy has been on a Kilkenny rollercoaster ride for 15 years

Kennedy won All-Ireland hurling titles with Kilkenny in 2014 and 2015. 

Brian Kennedy, Kilkenny, leaves the field after a 2016 Walsh Cup game against Offaly. Picture: Piaras Ó Mídheach / SPORTSFILE

Brian Kennedy has been on a curious sort of rollercoaster ride for 15 years now.

He was only 18 in 2010 when he helped St Lachtain's win the AIB All-Ireland intermediate club hurling title. In fact, on the day of his 18th birthday, the team visited Croke Park for a pre-final runaround.

"I thought the good times were going to stay rolling around forever," said the defender of his teenage self. And they did for a while.

Brian Cody started the 2014 Championship with Kennedy in his full-back line and the schoolteacher collected two All-Ireland medals before Cody summoned him to a Hotel Kilkenny meeting after the 2016 league to issue hurling's version of a P45.

"It wasn't that long of a conversation," recalled Kennedy.

Still, it was one hell of a ride with Kilkenny and Kennedy walked away reasoning that he'd given it his very best shot in a team of generational talents.

So when he found himself part of a St Lachtain's side a few years later, in late 2022, that had just been beaten in a Kilkenny intermediate relegation play-off match, sending them down to the junior ranks, it was a new low.

Only a year earlier, in 2021, they'd contested an intermediate final and had been within an hour of senior hurling.

Brian Kennedy of St.Lachtain’s pictured ahead of the AIB GAA All-Ireland Junior Club Hurling Championship final against Russel Rovers which takes place this Sunday, January 12th at Croke Park at 12.30pm. Picture: Credit ©INPHO/Laszlo Geczo

"To be honest, we were within even half an hour," said Kennedy. "We hurled really well in the first-half of that intermediate county final against Glenmore. We could have been a point or two up at half-time, or level, something like that. It was very close anyway. But obviously they destroyed us in the second-half and pulled away completely."

Fast forward 12 months and the pain of relegation was severe.

"It's as low as I've ever been after a hurling match anyway," said Kennedy. "It was a bad time for the club. We'd be hoping that we wouldn't make those mistakes again. Obviously we're on the crest of a wave at the moment but at the same time this is still the junior grade and we'd like to see ourselves up as an intermediate team and pushing to get up to senior in Kilkenny."

The Freshford side, typical of Kilkenny junior champions, have sauntered to the All-Ireland decider, save for a tight Leinster final win over the Wexford champions.

"We won the U-21A in 2012 and I think that's nearly the last thing I won with the club," said Kennedy. "It's been a long time so I'm definitely appreciating what we're doing now. To be honest, the last couple of years, I was just mad keen to win a county final."

Kilkenny clubs have won four of the last five AIB All-Ireland junior championships, including Conahy Shamrocks' 2020 final defeat of Russell Rovers. Five years on, the Cork side are back.

"I'm sure they'll probably throw something at us that maybe we haven't seen before, that we won't be expecting," said Kennedy, nodding towards Donal Og Cusack's involvement as coach. "We'll have to be on our toes certainly."