WATCH out, Joseph O’Brien. There is a new trainer in Kilkenny tipped for the top.

Step forward, Eddie Scally, better known as manager of both Gowran Park and Wexford racecourses. Eddie also manages to find time to train local hurling team Black & Whites and last Sunday they pulled off a shock win over Piltown at Nowlan Park that earned them a place in the Kilkenny junior hurling county final.

Eddie told us: “We scored two goals and a point in the last two minutes to win by a point. We’ll be underdogs again when we meet Windgap in the final on October 23rd but we’ll give it our best shot.”

As a former soccer player from Athlone, how did Eddie end up in charge of a hurling team in Kilkenny? “I’m very good friends with Matthew Flynn O’Connor, the point-to-point handler. He got me involved in training a club in Wexford, Duffry Rovers.

“Four years ago Black & Whites held a fundraiser at Gowran Park and they told me they had no manager. So they asked me to coach them and I brought Mattie with me as a selector. Now, four years later, we are in a county final.”

What if a match clashes with a racemeeting? “It very rarely happens and, if it did, our chairman Tom Carroll would help me out!”

You have to hand it to Eddie. He is surely in the running to be named Kilkenny’s bainisteoir of the year. Brian Cody was alright but he didn’t manage two racecourses at the same time.