Last weekend, Kilkenny football hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, as their minor footballers crashed to a humiliating 17-20 to 0-00 defeat to Wexford in the Leinster Minor Football Championship. So heavy was the defeat that it transcended the 'neither side learned anything from that' to become a subject for those keen to learn something, as the existential act of playing football in Kilkenny came under media scrutiny.
In the aftermath of the hammering, Kilkenny county board chairman Ned Quinn accepted that the blame for Kilkenny's lack of competitiveness in football lies with the county board:
As chairman of the county board, I have overall responsibility for all of our county teams so I accept my responsibilities as regards our minor football team as I do with any other team.
The second thing I would like to say, with the aid of hindsight, is to express very much regret that the young players who represented our county, and were more than willing to represent their county last Saturday, suffered the defeat that they did and I will apologise to them for what happened to them during the game on Saturday.
Furthermore, in a move that seems to confirm that the Central Competitions Control Committee are comedians playing to an audience that are too afraid to laugh, Kilkenny were then placed into the back-door, with another game to come. Today, however, it has been reported that the Kilkenny County Board have decided to pull the team out of the competition following a board meeting on Tuesday, presumably to save the young lads from further public humiliation.
While it is probably a good thing that the game - certain to end in yet another hammering - will not go ahead, it does call into question exactly how football can be promoted in Kilkenny. Before the Wexford defeat, football in Kilkenny was in a generally positive mood, with last year's victory in the British Junior Championship and the subsequent narrow defeat to Mayo in the All-Ireland Junior Championship stirring some positivity in the county. The defeat was a massive setback and this decision by the county board further exacerbates it.
There is also an argument as to why Kilkenny are targeted for so much debate as to how they treat football, when many other counties disregard hurling.
Writing in the Irish Examiner, DJ Carey expressed his sympathy for the Kilkenny footballers, but insists that Ned Quinn was wrong to publicly apologise to them, saying that "it’s a very nice gesture but I’m not fully agreeable with apologising for anybody going out on a field and getting beaten".
[Newstalk]
See Also: 'It's Not Wrestling A Lion': David Herity On Playing Senior Football For Kilkenny
