Kilkenny Minors open up Leinster campaign against Wexford this afternoon

Kilkenny will kick off the defence of their Leinster minor hurling championship title when they play host to Wexford in the season opener at UPMC Nowlan Park on Easter Sunday afternoon (2pm).

It’s the first of three round-robin games for Niall Bergin’s outfit with further clashes to come against Galway and Dublin on successive weekends.

The Kilkenny boss is looking forward to getting going for a new year.

“When you see the Munster Championship starting over the last few weeks, you’d get the itch to get going,” he said.

“We’ve played a lot of challenge games in the last few months and they’ve one well but we won’t know where we really stand till we start the championship.”

The young Kilkenny outfit will come into the year with plenty of expectation and promise with eight players that started last year’s All-Ireland final defeat to Tipperary still available including the likes of Jake Mullen, Larry Phelan and Ollie O’Donovan.

“We obviously would have liked to have won the All-Ireland final but we’d be hoping the experience will benefit the players that are back again this year and when you add in the freshness of some of the new lads, we think they are in a good place,” Bergin added.

The Cats will be looking to hit the ground running on Sunday but as the manager acknowledges it can be difficult to get the consistency at minor level and even though they won last year’s provincial title, they had to go the backdoor route to get there.

“Lads hit form at different stages and it’s still early in their development and that’s why the structure of giving the lads a lot of games is so important and I’d be hugely in favour of the way the championship is run at the moment.

“We had eight games in total last year and no team went the year unbeaten including All-Ireland winners Tipperary so you can see that it’s very competitive around the country and that can only be a positive in the long-term.”

Kilkenny team to face Wexford: Jake O'Doherty (Mooncoin), Oisin Henderson (Dicksboro), Larry Phelan (James Stephens), David McGee (O'Loughlin Gaels); Ben Nevin (Thomastown), Josh Dowling (Erin's Own), Darragh Hickey (Emeralds); PJ Mackey (Rower-Inistioge), Cian Byrne (O'Loughlin Gaels); Kevin Buggy (Erin's Own), Diarmuid Behan (James Stephens), Eoin Brennan (Erin's Own); Ollie O'Donovan (John Lockes), Jake Mullen (Shamrocks Ballyhale), Conor Holohan (O'Loughlin Gaels).

Subs- Cian Dermody (James Stephens), Kealan Barcoe (Young Irelands), Sean Hanrahan (Tullogher Rosbercon), Brian Hickey (Dunnamaggin), Adam Maher (O'Loughlin Gaels), Paddy O'Brien (John Lockes), Ruairi Power (James Stephens), Jach Rhatigan (Conahy Shamrocks), Killian Ryan (Shamrocks Ballyhale).