By John Harrington

Here’s a potential quiz-question for you - what year did Kilkenny win an All-Ireland hurling and football double in Croke Park?

That eventuality hasn’t come to pass just yet, but it’s only three wins away.

Most people know that the Kilkenny senior hurlers will play Limerick in the All-Ireland SHC Final, but the county’s footballers are also chasing glory of their own.

This Friday they’ll play London in the semi-final of the All-Ireland Junior Football Championship with the winners progressing to the Final which will be held in Croke Park as a curtain-raiser to the All-Ireland SFC semi-final between Dublin and Kerry.

After a two-year hiatus the competition has been revived this year with a more developmental ethos.

Also competing are London, Warwickshire, and New York teams made up exclusively of native-born players.

Kilkenny will play London and Warwickshire will play New York in the two semi-finals which will be held in the National Games Development Centre in Abbotstown tomorrow.

In recent years Kilkenny’s senior inter-county football outlet has been to compete in the All-Britain Junior Football County Championship and they’ve done well in it, winning titles in three of the seven years they competed, 2015, 2017, and 2018.

The Covid-19 pandemic prevented the county from fielding in inter-county competition for the past two years, so the newly structured All-Ireland Junior Football Championship has been greeted with enthusiasm by the Kilkenny footballers.

Managed once again by Christy Walsh who has been at the helm of successive Kilkenny football teams for many years now, he’s been impressed by the application his players have shown in recent weeks.

“Our preparations have gone very well,” Walsh told GAA.ie “We've been training for 10 weeks and meet up on Monday nights because other nights would cut across hurling and all of the lads would play hurling.

“In fairness to all the boys who have turned out they've been very dedicated. They come every night and they enjoy it. If they didn't they wouldn’t be turning up. We've had a very good response from the players and we've four or five challenge games under our belts against teams from Carlow, Kildare, and Waterford.

“The lads have been excellent, in fairness to them. I'm sure it's the same for the other three teams, but the carrot of playing the Final in Croke Park is a big one. That was the unique selling point for the competition, and I think that's why so many players have made the commitment.

“We're hoping for the best. It's a new competition and there's a novelty with that.”

There’s only one dedicated Gaelic Football club in Kilkenny, Railyard, the rest would be hurling first and foremost, but the majority would field football teams at the start of the year when the Kilkenny championship is played off.

Most of the Kilkenny football team that will play London on Friday are made up of players who play club hurling to a very high level and former inter-county star, Paul Murphy, will be among them, so physical conditioning shouldn’t be an issue at least.

“That's true to an extent, but there's a different fitness required for hurling and football as well so you have to work on that,” says Walsh. “But, yes, ball-skills would be very important.

“We meet once a week so that's definitely a focus in those training sessions, the ball-handling and kicking. I suppose we're trying to do a lot in a short space of time because Kilkenny didn't field a football team for three years because of Covid so we're playing catch-up to a certain extent.

“The football season finished here in April and there won't be a football kicked again at club level in Kilkenny until next year. So this match on Friday is a journey into the unknown.”

If Kilkenny could beat London on Friday then the sight of a Cats football team playing in Croke Park would surely draw some attention in a county where the focus rarely deviates from hurling.

Is there any potential for using that as a spring-board to develop football in Kilkenny to the point where they can compete again in the Allianz League and All-Ireland Championship some day?

“That has to be a long-term thing,” says Walsh. “You'd want to be preparing for that for a couple of years in terms of strength and conditioning and all of that.

“There's no underage county teams as such, there's no U-17 or U-20 team coming up along so it's hard to see that at this stage. It's possible if you put the structures in place but there has to be a lead in period to it as well.”

Friday, July 8

GAA Football All-Ireland Junior Championship Semi-Finals

New York v Warwickshire, NGDC Abbotstown, 5pm

Referee: Conor Dourneen (Cavan)

(E.T. in Necessary & Winner on the Day)

Kilkenny v London, NGDC Abbotstown, 7pm

Referee: Kevin Faloon (Armagh)

(E.T. in Necessary & Winner on the Day)

Sunday, July 10

GAA Footabll All-Ireland Junior Championship semi-finals

Warwickshire/New York v London/Kilkenny, Croke Park, 1pm

Referee: Barry Tiernan (Dublin)

(E.T. in Necessary & Winner on the Day)