\u200bElectric Ireland Leinster MHC semi-finals<\/p>\n
Galway 6-21 Wexford 3-12<\/p>\n
Kilkenny 2-18 Dublin 1-20<\/p>\n
By Paul Keane<\/p>\n
Kilkenny and Galway will meet again in the Electric Ireland Leinster MHC final.<\/p>\n
But while six-goal Galway secured their return to next weekend’s decider with relative ease, seeing off Wexford with 18 points to spare, it was far tighter for holders Kilkenny.<\/p>\n
In fact, just a point separated Kilkenny from Dublin after a terrific Parnell Park encounter that went right to the wire.<\/p>\n
Joe Dowling’s prolific scoring was the difference again for the young Cats with the Dicksboro talent firing a crucial 1-8.<\/p>\n
Kilkenny were grateful also to Ruair\u00ed Power who registered the 61st minute goal that shoved the visitors five points clear at that stage.<\/p>\n
That margin flattered them as the sides were level four times throughout a blood and thunder second half at the north Dublin venue.<\/p>\n
And Dublin duly responded with 1-1 from free-taker Richie Hession, the goal coming in the fourth minute of stoppage time, to cut the deficit back to the minimum.<\/p>\n
Time ultimately ran out on Dublin’s bid to reach the final as Kilkenny, with seven different scorers on the day, advanced to what will be a repeat of the 2025 decider.<\/p>\n
Kilkenny led by 1-10 to 0-11 at half time, the goal coming from Dowling after just seven minutes from a penalty.<\/p>\n
Corey Kelly, Jack Ledwidge and Hession, who struck 1-11 in all, were all on the mark with Dublin points in the opening period.<\/p>\n
And when Dublin started the second half with points from Tommy Dillon and Hession, it levelled the game and set the tone for a gripping finale.<\/p>\n
Galway were more comfortable in Portlaoise where they built on a 3-10 to 1-7 half time lead with three more goals after the break to win with plenty to spare.<\/p>\n
The sides were level at 1-4 apiece but when Galway grabbed their second goal in the 16th minute, they moved ahead and didn’t look back.<\/p>\n
Wexford refused to throw in the towel and were on the mark in the second half with goals from Joey Tobin and Jack Cullen.<\/p>\n
All is not lost for the Model County who advance to play Clare or Cork in an All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u200bElectric Ireland Leinster MHC semi-finals Galway 6-21 Wexford 3-12 Kilkenny 2-18 Dublin 1-20 By Paul Keane Kilkenny and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-440496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}