Former All-Ireland winning goalkeeper David Herity believes there are question marks over the conveyor belt of young talent coming through in Kilkenny.

Herity was speaking on last night's 'Off The Ball' programme on Newstalk alongside former Cats colleague Michael Rice and voiced his concern about a lack of U21 success in the county in recent years.

The Cats had a disappointing Leinster U21 championship last year under former senior star Eddie Brennan when they lost out to 20/1 underdogs Westmeath in a massive upset back in May before the seniors went on to lose their All-Ireland crown to Tipperary in September.

"Every few years when Kilkenny do lose, there is this conversation that the county are going to go through a dark spell. Even when you look at 2001 when it happened, every time Brian Cody has lost, he's come back and won the next two," Herity told Newstalk Radio.

"History does say that he comes back even stronger every single time and wins two-in-a-row. But the huge elephant in the room is the huge fact that when you look at the massive successes that Kilkenny have had, the 2006-2009 team came off the back of us winning U21 in 2003 and 2004.

"They had huge success at U21 level around the turn of the decade and then the senior team drove on for the next four or five years from 2011 to 2015.

"Now that's not the case. The U21 haven't won a Leinster in four years, which is huge. That's leading to the question of the conveyor belt and whether it was as strong as it once was?"

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