A Walsh Cup quarter-final between Westmeath and Kilkenny shouldn’t really make any headlines; it’s a game that both sides will want to get through safely and continue their preparations for the upcoming season.
Instead, it became a very strange affair.
A few hundred spectators were left stunned in Mullingar on Sunday afternoon when Westmeath were left to conduct a training session of their own, following an extraordinary chain of events that ended with the Leinster champions refusing to take the field.
Walsh Cup Descends Into Chaos On Day One As Kilkenny Refuse To Play
The quarter-final clash between Westmeath and Kilkenny had already been disrupted earlier in the day.
Originally fixed for The Downs GAA grounds, the game was switched at 11.30am due to pitch concerns, with players and supporters redirected to St Loman’s GAA club, seven miles away.
Kilkenny arrived at the new venue on time and were prepared to play. However, complications arose when the club’s grass pitch was not made available. Instead, St Loman’s offered their artificial surface as the playing area.
That proposal proved unacceptable to Kilkenny.
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According to local reports, Cats manager Derek Lyng was willing for the match to proceed on grass, but after consultation with his medical and backroom team, he informed match officials that Kilkenny would not field if the game was played on the astro surface.
What followed was a bizarre scene.
Westmeath continued their warm-up on the artificial pitch, while Kilkenny conducted theirs on a gravel area beside the dressing rooms. At no point did the Leinster champions step onto the artificial surface, even to warm up.
Around ten minutes before throw-in, a lively discussion took place outside the dressing rooms. Match officials then emerged onto the field, with roughly 300 spectators already in place.
Moments later, a linesman sprinted back towards the Kilkenny dressing room. Almost simultaneously, Kilkenny backroom staff were seen gathering cones and sliotars.
Within seconds, the game was off.
With Kilkenny unwilling to play on the surface offered, the match was officially abandoned just one minute before the scheduled start time. Under competition rules, Westmeath advanced after a coin toss, recording what will go down in the records as a win over Kilkenny, albeit one achieved without a sliotar being struck.
The incident was not isolated.
Cold weather wreaked havoc across the Walsh Cup programme, with Offaly and Galway also advancing by coin toss after their respective fixtures were called off due to conditions. Kilkenny will now play in the Walsh Cup Shield.
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