Galway and Cats earn opening Leinster SHC wins as Dublin deny Wexford late on

April 21, 2024

Antrim's Conal Cunning tackles Shane Murphy of Kilkenny ©INPHO/Leah Scholes

Galway got their Leinster senior hurling championship campaign off to a flying start by handing Carlow a 2-25 to 2-14 defeat in Salthill.

Gavin Lee’s goal after just two minutes marked the perfect start for Henry Shefflin’s side and, from there, they’d kick on towards a comfortable 1-14 to 0-9 half-time lead.

Carlow kept themselves in with an outside chance after the turnaround thanks to scores from Marty Kavanagh and Chris Nolan before narrowing their deficit to four with a Conor Kehoe goal on 52 minutes.

Galway came up with the perfect response that saw Conor Cooney smashing to the Barrowsiders’ net three minutes later, and the Tribesmen could even afford to concede a John Nolan goal in the closing stages of a game which saw Conor Whelan returning from injury off the bench for them for the last 10 minutes.

Kilkenny had it all their own way at UPMC Nowlan Park where they kept things to script with an emphatic 5-30 to 0-13 win over Antrim.

The Cats’ first goal came from Martin Keoghan after 18 minutes as they raced towards a 1-15 to 0-7 half-time lead and more majors via Owen Wall and Gearoid Dunne saw them up by 25 points with five minutes remaining.

More green flags from Wall and Billy Drennan (penalty) would help complete the rout as the holders chalked routine win in this one.

In Chadwicks Wexford Park, Dublin scored two late goals to snatch a 2-18 to 1-21 draw against Wexford.

After the sides had been level (1-8 to 0-11) at the end of the first-half, it was the Model men that looked on course for the opening win after the points of Lee Chin (2) and Cian Byrne had them five to the good eight minutes remaining.

The same margin stood in injury-time when goals from Danny Sutcliffe and Cian O’Sullivan either side of a Cathal Dunbar point rescued a result for the capital men.


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