Derek Lyng has recovered from injury to take his place on the Kilkenny team for tomorrow's opening championship fixture against Offaly at Croke Park. Manager Brian Cody had delayed the selection of the side until last night to conduct a fitness test on the player.
The centrefielder was passed fit after a week of speculation about a knee injury that together with a groin strain threatened to rule him out of the Leinster semi-final.
This means Kilkenny will field the same side that was so impressive in defeating Clare in last month's National Hurling League final in Thurles. It also means senior championship debuts for four players, the James Stephens pair Jackie Tyrrell and Eoin Larkin, Bryan Barry of Dicksboro, and Carrickshock's Richie Power.
Selection rounds off a remarkable year for Larkin and Barry. Larkin didn't even make last year's under-21s but established himself as a high-scoring presence in his club's sweep to last March's All-Ireland title and lines out tomorrow at centre forward.
Barry was on the UCD team that won last year's Dublin title and ironically lost to James Stephens in the Leinster final. There had been talk of his transferring to Dublin but Cody included him in his plans as soon as the new season started and he has impressed at centrefield for the county throughout the successful league campaign.
Meanwhile the decision of the Leinster Council to return St Brigid's objection to their Dublin championship defeat by Kilmacud Crokes on the grounds that county player Mark Vaughan shouldn't have played to the Dublin county board means that the issue will stay alive for another few weeks.
Dublin had ruled the objection out of order on technical grounds, which were overturned by Leinster, which means that the county will now hear the full objection.
Vaughan had been cleared to play by the GAA's new disputes resolution authority (DRA) but St Brigid's are expected to argue that the DRA was prematurely convened to hear the case and that the rule book on which the authority relied was deficient in not including a motion passed by the 1996 congress to the effect that the club and county championships should be considered as one.
Kilmacud had successfully argued that Vaughan should serve a suspension for being sent off in last year's Leinster club championship semi-final in that competition rather than the Dublin championship in which the club played and beat St Brigid's in the first round last month.
Whatever the Dublin County Board decide, the matter is expected to go back to the provincial council on appeal and from there through the GAA's new appeals machinery.
Next September will see Mickey Ned O'Sullivan finally get his hands on the Sam Maguire, 30 years after he was unable to be presented with it. Captain of Mick O'Dwyer's breakthrough side in 1975, O'Sullivan was also one of the team's most dangerous forwards.
In the first half he was caught in a notorious sandwich between Dublin defenders Alan Larkin and Seán Doherty and as a result of the collision suffered concussion. He was taken to hospital and the honour of lifting the trophy went to Pat Spillane.
What was considered a shock victory for Kerry triggered a decade-long rivalry between the counties and at a gala function to be held at the INEC in Killarney this September the Kerry and Dublin teams will gather to honour O'Sullivan.
Seán Doherty will formally present the cup to O'Sullivan at what will be the first formal reunion of the two teams that dominated football in the 1970s.
John Fitzgerald has been drafted into the Limerick senior hurling panel to the exclusion of former Clare goalkeeper Ger O'Connell, who had played in a couple of National League games with the Shannonsiders. Meanwhile, Donal O'Grady is still nursing a finger injury in the build-up to next week's All-Ireland qualifiers, though he is expected to be available.
KILKENNY (SH v Offaly): J McGarry; J Tyrrell, N Hickey, J Ryall; R Mullally, P Barry, JJ Delaney; B Barry, D Lyng; M Comerford, E Larkin, T Walsh; R Power, DJ Carey, H Shefflin.
