By Karl O’Kane

Copyright irishmirror

Henry Shefflin’s return to the Kilkenny fold is a welcome one, according to his former All-Ireland winning team mate Paul Murphy.

Shefflin was appointed Kilkenny under-20 manager earlier this week with a high profile backroom team that includes his regular right hand man Richie O’Neill and his ex Cats’ team mate Brian Hogan.

Also included are Hogan’s O’Loughlin Gaels club mates Stephen Murphy (Goalkeeping Coach) and Fergal Brennan (Performance Analysis).

The Head Coach is St. Martin’s Sean Kelly, with Dicksboro’s James Gittens and James Stephens’ Nathen Culleton (Strength and Conditioning) also on board.

Record 10-time All-Ireland winner and 11-time All Star Shefflin is currently managing his own club, Shamrocks Ballyhale, after finishing up a three year stint as Galway boss at the end of last season.

His move to manage Galway wasn’t received well in some quarters in Kilkenny, with the notorious post match hand shakes with Brian Cody in May and June 2022 causing controversy at the time.

After the second one, Shefflin walked away shaking his head. However, Kilkenny’s move for what many regard as their greatest ever player will be viewed as bringing down the curtain on those contentious events.

Shamrocks – the record nine-time All-Ireland winners – have qualified for the senior quarter-finals under Shefflin, who also previously managed Kilkenny club Bennettsbridge.

Shefflin (46) guided Shamrocks to back to back All-Ireland club titles (2019/20) in his last stint in charge of the club.

And he could face a tricky balancing act over the Autumn and Winter months if Ballyhale go deep into the provincial and All-Ireland series.

“Even from Henry’s point of view, he’s been on the road up to Galway a lot, and I know Henry wants to be involved with Kilkenny,” says Paul Murphy.

“The under-20s is probably a great little gateway for him to come into Kilkenny.

“I think if I was a minor or an under-20 player going into a dressing room and Henry Shefflin was inside in it, you’d be delighted. You’d be listening to any words of wisdom.”

Shefflin is a likely future Kilkenny senior boss, but Murphy believes that Derek Lyng’s current side aren’t far away from an All-Ireland following semi-final defeats by Clare (2024) and Tipperary (2025) over the last two seasons.

And he reckons keeping key personnel fit could be the key for their 2026 campaign, with Lyng recently agreeing a fresh two years term after completing his initial three year stint.

Four time All-Ireland winner Murphy (36) said: “I don’t think they’re looking to make too much of a shake-up, to be honest. They’ve introduced players, and I think they’ve given a lot of players a lot of opportunities and runs.

“It’s something you can’t be critical of Derek Lyng of, that he hasn’t given lads opportunities. I think at the moment really what they’re looking at is, Adrian Mullen had injuries over this year.

“You’d like to see the likes of himself, Eoin Cody, Huw Lawler and the lads that make up the core of that team on the field as much as possible.

“So Adrian Mullen probably didn’t have the impact he would have liked this year, and maybe Kilkenny will be looking for the likes of those players if they are to win an All-Ireland, to be performing every single day.

“And maybe bolstered by the injection of a few new younger players. Kilkenny have been making under-20 All-Irelands and minor All-Irelands over the last few years. So they’ll be looking to take two or three from that.

“I think every inter-county team is looking to inject that new blood the whole time. Kilkenny will look at this and go, we were a puck of a ball from being in an All-Ireland final.

“So we’re not too far off the mark as it is. But realistically, the facts will show that we fell short at an All-Ireland semi-final again. I don’t think Derek will be looking to reinvent the wheel.”

Murphy says no-one in Kilkenny expected the county to go so long without another All-Ireland title.

“In 2015 you definitely thought that at the very most, you might go another two or three years without winning one,” he continued.

“That was the thinking at the time, but to go this length, I think a lot of counties themselves would have not thought they would have gone this long.

“Really, it’s that Limerick team that landed, particularly (for) the current batch of Kilkenny lads, because I think in any other generation they might have been good enough to actually go and win one.

“Particularly then, not getting over the hurdle of Clare last year, when Clare go on and win it.

“I think us in Kilkenny, we do believe that the panel is good enough to go and win an All-Ireland. You see Eddie Brendan now going in with the management.

“There’s continuity in the management. There’s a lot of good players there. So we believe that there is an All-Ireland winning team there, but the field is very balanced in hurling at the moment.

“There’s a lot of teams that can have a serious tilt at an All-Ireland, but I think Kilkenny will be looking and saying, Tipperary going winning the All-Ireland this year. Kilkenny were the width of Robert Doyle’s hurl from being in an All-Ireland final.

“They’re not that far away at the moment.”