Under-20 and senior hurling clashes set for big collision

While things have gone swimmingly thus far for the under-20 players that are also involved with the Kilkenny senior hurling squad, the Cats are reaching a point where some big decisions will have to made.

Billy Drennan, Timmy Clifford and Gearoid Dunne all won All-Ireland medals with the Kilkenny under-20s in 2022 and are still underage this term.

All three played a part in Kilkenny's Allianz National League semi-final victory over Cork last Sunday. However, the final is scheduled to take place on the same weekend that Mark Dowling’s under-20s kick off the defence of their Leinster title.

While Clifford and Dunne have been mainly bit-part players with the Cats during the league, Billy Drennan has been one of the breakout stars, starting all six games thus far as well as amassing a huge 2-65 total.

Kilkenny senior boss Derek Lyng knows all about the difficulties between the two grades after managing the under-20s last season. He acknowledges that there will have to be a discussion in the near future.

“We’ll see how the fixtures go and we’ll discuss that, but Billy’s obviously a part of the senior squad as are Timmy and Gearoid,” he said.

“When the problem arises we will obviously have to balance it out and see what way things work out with the under-20 championship as well.”

Kilkenny will meet Limerick in the Division 1 National Hurling League Final on Sunday week in Pairc Ui Chaoimh while on Easter Saturday is when the Kilkenny under-20s travel to the South-East to meet Wexford before having further games against Galway at an Offaly venue on April 15 and Dublin at a Kilkenny venue on April 22.

Incidentally, that final Leinster under-20 championship clash with Dublin is down for decision on the same day that the senior team faces Westmeath in their provincial opener. That game has a 6pm throw-in at UPMC Nowlan Park.

Back at the GAA’s annual Congress in February, a Wexford proposal to ease restrictions between under-20 and senior eligibilities was passed.

That motion did arrive with something of a asterisk after it was agreed that a new seven-day window was opened, so that it will be possible for a under-20 player to line out for both his under-age and senior county teams but not in a specific seven-day block, Friday morning to Thursday evening.

The move has since been implemented but at least from a Kilkenny point of view, it looks like it’s open to a lot of friction down the line depending on how far the under-20s progress in the Leinster Championship and beyond.