Kilkenny JHC Final- All to play for in ‘tough to call’ junior county hurling decider

The JJ Kavanagh and Sons Junior Hurling Championship is down to its final two clubs with Windgap and St Lachtain’s (Freshford) vying for Saturday’s final.

It’s a meeting of the last two beaten county finalists with Windgap looking to make up for defeat to Blacks and Whites two years ago, while Lachtain’s are aiming to bounce back from being outgunned by subsequent All-Ireland junior champions Tullogher-Rosbercon this time last year.

Both sides will look back on those final losses with regret and know that this is an opportunity they can’t pass up as they strive to bring home the Bob Aylward Cup.

St Lachtain’s will start as narrow favourites and rightly so considering it’s only three years ago that they faced Glenmore in an intermediate county final. While they were beaten on that occasion, the fact they got within one win of returning to senior hurling shows the array of talent at their disposal.

Incredibly, relegation to the junior grade followed a year later but now in a second successive final, they are again within touching distance of returning to intermediate.

While you don’t have to go far for Freshford’s participation in the higher grades of Kilkenny hurling, it’s a much different situation for their opponents on Saturday as Windgap look to win the junior title for the first time since 1986.

That stay at the higher grade wasn’t too long either; two years later they were relegated by none other than Freshford.

That history and culture is all in the past now though as the undoubted best two teams at junior level this year face off one more time.

It’s not the first time the two are battling for silverware in 2024 either. They met in the league final last month and it was Windgap who claimed a big success as they ran out 2-17 to 0-14 winners, although St Lachtain’s were shorn of a few key players.

Windgap have maintained their impressive run in their two championship games with sizeable wins over Graignamanagh and Emeralds (Urlingford). If they bring that form into the final, they will be tough to defeat.

In contrast, Freshford got the fright of their lives when a Billy Drennan-inspired Galmoy had them at the pin of their collar before former Kilkenny star James Maher netted the winning goal in stoppage time. Without Maher it would have been curtains for Lachtain’s as he finished up with a tally of 4-2.

Freshford then put in a big second half display to beat James Stephens quite comfortably the last day but the formline is a tough one to read with the Village emerging from the Section B side of the competition.

On paper, there looks to be very different little between the sides and if both click it should be a cracking affair for which a decent attendance is expected.

Freshford have a lot of experience for this level of hurling with Brian Kennedy, Darren Brennan and James Maher having tasted intercounty fare with Kilkenny. This added to the influence of Cathal Hickey and Cathal O’Leary and it’s definitely a panel of players capable of putting up a winning tally.

Windgap themselves have Kilkenny experience at different levels from Emmet Landy, Sean Purcell and Conor Doyle while captain Niall Walsh, James Power and James Culleton all hugely important.

Hard to imagine more than a puck of the ball between them, but if Freshford can curtail Emmet Landy, they might just have enough firepower down the other end to prevail.