A good start but bigger battles still on the horizon for Kilkenny Minor Boss
Niall Bergin gave us his reaction after Round 1 win over Wexford
If Kilkenny minor manager Niall Bergin had dreamt of an ideal start to the defence of their Leinster crown, then it’s likely that Sunday’s win over Wexford wasn’t far from the perfect scenario.
A 22-point success over a Wexford side that defeated them last year was a blockbuster beginning for this well fancied Kilkenny team and Bergin was just glad to get the lads on the field.
“It was a good win,” he said. “We came here to win as there was two points up for grabs and we haven’t played for a long time.
“We’ve been watching the Munster Championship and we’ve been kind of mad to get going in the last few weeks and we knew we’d be a bit rusty coming in.
“The lads were hungry for it and we created a lot of chances and while we didn’t take as many as we’d like, that’s another day’s work and we’ll take today on its merits.”
A first half red card to Wexford’s Joey Tobin may have skewed the final scoreline a little but there’s no doubting the potential at Bergin’s disposal as his team returned to UPMC Nowlan Park for the first time since last June’s All-Ireland final loss.
“We’ve a good bunch of players and there’s 35 lads there all looking to make an impression and it’s a difficult call to name the 24 for the matchday squad and our subs did well too so we are going well and we’ll need our panel for the rest of the year.
“Day one is done and dusted and we will move on.
“We can only look after ourselves to be honest with you and we are just delighted to get up and running and we’ve plenty to work on and that’s what we’ll do in training this week ahead of a quick turnaround to the Galway game,” he added.
A win in this weekend’s clash with the Tribesmen will all but seal a place in a Leinster semi-final but all is not lost regardless of the result after they won last year’s title on the back of being bottom in the round-robin group.
“Every game we play we just want to win and if that means we get straight into a Leinster semi-final then great, but on the other side of it we still won a Leinster title by going through a quarter-final last year so it depends on what way you want to frame it.”