When Kilkenny's minor footballers put it up to the All-Ireland champions April 12, 2019





Kilkenny's Henry Shefflin and Brian McDonald of Laois. Kilkenny's Henry Shefflin and Brian McDonald of Laois.

Kilkenny make their return to the Leinster minor football championship later this month for the first time since 2016 when they suffered a humiliating 70-point first round defeat to Wexford.

The Cats host Louth at Nowlan Park in their first game of the round-robin series on Tuesday week, April 23 and will be aiming for a respectable performance against the Wee County. It might be a bit much to expect them to repeat their heroic display of 22 years ago when they ran Laois to three points, 4-5 to 2-14, in the first round at O'Moore Park.

Laois, with the brilliant Brian 'Beano' McDonald spearheading their attack, were in the middle of putting Tom Markham Cups back-to-back, but they received a huge scare from a Kilkenny team that included future All-Ireland hurling champions Michael Kavanagh and Noel Hickey in their defence. And a certain Henry Shefflin came off the bench to bag 1-1!

Here's the teams and scorers from that May day in 1997:

Laois - P Maher; T McDonald, E Bland, T Lynch; D Mullins, D Rooney, T Mulligan; M Hovenden (0-1), Stephen Kelly; K Kelly (1-3), T Kelly, Shane Hennessy; M Lambe, B McDonald (0-7), D Kavanagh (1-3).

Kilkenny - F O'Neill; M Kavanagh, P Shore, N Hickey; J Morgan, N Nevin, JP O'Neill; JP Corcoran (1-0), M Hoyne; M Dunne (1-0), J Walsh, P Buggy; N McCormack (0-1), B Cantwell, P Sheenan (1-3). Subs: Henry Shefflin (1-1) for Walsh, J Brennan for Hoyne.

Referee - F Togher (Longford).

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