Richard Walsh’s prices on this year’s Pettitt’s senior hurling championship certainly make for interesting reading, as it must be the first time in at least 12 to 15 years that Oulart-The Ballagh do not head the market.

Last year’s county champions, St. Martin’s, are installed the 2/1 favourites, the Oulart men are chalked up at 5/2 and 10/1 bar these two.

Pettitt’s Senior Hurling Championship

St. Martin’s 2/1

Oulart-The Ballagh 5/2

Rapparees 10/1

Naomh Eanna 10/1

Glynn-Barntown 14/1

Shelmaliers 14/1

Buffers Alley 16/1

Oylegate-Glenbrien 20/1

Rathnure 20/1

Ferns 25/1

Faythe Harriers 33/1

St. Anne’s 33/1

St. Martin’s beat Oulart-The Ballagh in last year’s county final 2-16 to 1-9, and they also beat them in the early stages of the championship in Bellefield, so no fluke there, and being honest should the teams meet in the knockout stages of this year’s campaign, it will be difficult to see any other result.

This ageing Oulart team may well have reached their sell-by date. However, they were written off in 2014 after their shock quarter-final elimination to Glynn-Barntown, but bounced back under Frank Flannery to beat Cuala for that elusive Leinster Club title only to loose out to Na Piarsaigh after extra-time in the All-Ireland semi-final. They bagged another county title in 2016. Andy Moloney is now in charge, and it will be interesting to see how they fare in their opening game against Glynn-Barntown.

St. Martin’s are a young talented hurling team, but their folly for double jobbing with both hurling and football may well prove their downfall. They will have no problem going through the league stages of the campaign unbeaten, but when faced with playing every weekend in the knockout phase of both hurling and football they may well fall short. The club has won the senior hurling championship on three occasions – 1999, 2008, and 2017; every 9 years, so I guess they are not due to win another one until 2026!

The 10/1 on offer about Naomh Eanna may prove a bit of value; the addition of Cathal Dunbar to the Gorey full-forward line will ensure a potent strike-force with Conor McDonald. They lost out to St. Martin’s at the semi-final stage last year.

Is it possible that the value bet may be Buffers Alley at 16s; now concentrating solely on hurling, they only lost out by a single point to St. Martin’s 1-16 to 1-15 at the quarter-final stage in 2017, and they could well have beaten the Piercestown-Murrintown men that day, so maybe a score on them to win their first senior championship since 1992 is surely not a big ask?