Cup game could be defining moment

Sometimes you just call it wrong and as the handful of journalists covering Sunday's run-of-the-mill encounter between UCD and Kilkenny City at Belfield got regular updates of what was happening across in Santry, depression steadily descended on our small gathering.

In my case curiosity had kept me on the southside, a desire to see the full effects of Joe McGrath's wheeling and dealing since taking over at the City helm.

It was interesting to see the dramatically restructured side - McGrath has signed more than a dozen players since arriving in September and another is expected from America today - and a good few of them played in the game that assistant manager Billy Walsh described as so important it was "a ninepointer".

Walsh was in charge as McGrath is in New Zealand and after the defeat he conceded that even the miracle they had required to stay up prior to the game would not now save them.

Kilkenny have won once in 15 games since Pat Byrne's departure which is dismal stuff even if the one win was a good one. Putting Galway United out of the FAI Cup in Terryland Park is no mean feat and if City can progress to the quarter-finals then some of the gloom will be lifted.

A great deal is going on behind the scenes at Kilkenny. With work on a new 1,000-seat stand now under way; a coaching school for schoolkids due to start in a month and slightly further down the line plans for an academy based at a five-acre site provided by a dedicated supporter, the cup tie against Cherry Orchard may prove a defining moment for the club.

However, their standing in the town is good with local firm TC Tyres funding some of the costs of the schoolboy coaching, which will be run by Walsh.

However, there will still be no schoolboy teams, the belief being that by encouraging other local clubs rather than competing with them everybody will get on better in the long term. Of course, it's not so long ago that not having a reserve team got City into trouble and the potential for the same sort of difficulties remains.

Since Alfie Hale retired, though, there has been a shift back towards bringing in outside players with Byrne favouring Dubliners and McGrath taking a characteristically more international approach.

Gavin Wilkinson, a New Zealand international who looked a decent player on Sunday, has now signed a long-term deal with the club and it is intended that he and a number of others will move to the city and visit the schools on behalf of the club.

Around such a core of full-timers, it is hoped more and better local players can be brought through, although club secretary Jim Rhattigan admits that they are looking at five to seven years before the impact of the new coaching structures kick in.

Nothing that is planned, he insists, will be affected by the team's relegation, although quite who will be overseeing the operation will surely be a matter for conjecture.

Asked if McGrath's position is secure regardless of how the rest of this season goes, Rhattigan laughs and points out: "Let me put it this way, we'll sit tight until the summer when we can look around and take stock of the entire situation."

emalone@irish-times.ie