For all its endeavour, it took a moment of invention to win a game that greatly lacked a cutting edge at Buckley Park on Saturday night.

Sligo scored with their only effort on target, which came on 69 minutes, when Steve Jones looped a long range header from Mark Hutchison's deep left wing cross over Ashley Stephenson and into the Kilkenny net to give them their first win of the league season.

Sligo were the better side in the second half but were lucky not to have been behind at the interval as Kilkenny had taken the game to them for much of the opening 45 minutes.