Door open for Mackessy to switch to Kilkenny
O’Loughlin Gaels player Fionán Mackessy looks poised to throw his lot in with the Kilkenny Senior Hurling team ahead of the upcoming inter-county season.
Mackessy transferred to the defending county champions from St Brendan’s Ardfert earlier this year and the Kerry native has rose to prominence in recent weeks after a number of impressive displays in the St Canice’s Credit Union Senior Hurling Championship.
The 26-year-old netted a last minute goal in an overall tally of 1-4 as O’Loughlin’s beat city rivals Dicksboro in the quarter-final and as recent as last Sunday, he was on the goal trail once more as he finished with 1-7 in the semi-final success against Bennettsbridge.
His performances will have certainly caught the eye of the Kilkenny management and to most onlookers in the county, he looks like the type of player that would complement Derek Lyng’s charges.
Mackessy has been a huge performer in the green and gold for Kerry and only last week, he was named on the Joe McDonagh champion 15 for a fifth time overall.
Earlier this week, new Kerry hurling boss John Griffin confirmed that the former St Brendan’s club star is interested in a role with Kilkenny after speaking to the media for the first time.
“I know what Fionán was capable of,” Griffin said when speaking to the Kerryman Newspaper. “He’s been one of the best players in the Joe Mac in the last few years. He’s after getting a job in Kilkenny, he’s playing his club hurling with O’Loughlin Gaels. He sees an opportunity now as he’s living and working up there of maybe making a Kilkenny panel.
“Obviously at the moment I think he’s doing a little bit of S&C with them, the Kilkenny panel, as far as I know, and he has to explore that opportunity and he has to“.
In the short-term, Mackessy and his O’Loughlin Gaels teammates will be busy preparing for the senior championship final with Thomastown on Sunday week.
This weekend is another packed schedule of hurling and camogie action with three county titles decided between Saturday and Sunday.
UPMC Nowlan Park hosts four games over the course of the weekend which begins with the Premier Junior Hurling Championship Semi-Finals on Saturday as Windgap face Emeralds at 1.15pm before the meeting of James Stephens and St Lachtain’s at 3.15pm.
The Intermediate Camogie Final between Mooncoin and O’Loughlin Gaels is on the same afternoon in Callan while on Sunday, there is a huge double header with Dicksboro and Piltown meeting in the Senior Camogie final at 1.15pm before Young Irelands and Lisdowney clash in the Intermediate Hurling decider at 3.15pm.