Kilkenny's qualification for their sixth successive All-Ireland SHC final last Sunday was just the tonic JJ Delaney needed after being laid off from work.

The former Hurler of theYear was made redundant last Friday after working as a sales representative with building products firm Tegral for five years. But the disappointment of being unemployed clearly hasn't affected his hurling, and he is looking forward to concentrating on hurling full-time ahead of the All-Ireland decider on September 4.

"Ah sure look it's happening to everyone. I'm not the only one after losing a job in the current circumstances, I'm lucky enough to have the hurling to concentrate on," he said after Sunday's win over Waterford.

"It's a great thing for me to concentrate on, I was concentrating on this for the last week. It's a great thing to have the hurling in the background."

He continued: "I had five years experience with the company I was with. I'm hopeful I will pick up something but there are no guarantees out there anymore. I mean, it's just the situation at the moment in the jobs market, there's not a huge amount out there.

"We'll just have to keep the head down and send out the CVs and hopefully something will come of it."

The Fenians clubman insists he will not look a gift horse in the mouth should he receive a job offer between now and the All-Ireland.

"If something comes up I'm not going to pass it up just because the final is coming up.

"In an ideal world I could just prepare for the final. But if something comes up in the meantime I'll take it with both hands. But you can be a professional hurler there for three or four weeks."

Delaney admits Kilkenny have plenty to work on after they hit 17 wides in the semi-final.

"Going into the next few weeks, certain players have to look at themselves and how they played. Everyone will look at their own game in the next couple of days and say, 'right, I have to work on such and such a thing'.

"That's a good thing too, rather than having the perfect performance. The semi-final is all about just getting into the final. There's no silverware at the end of the day. We are where we want to be." Tweet

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