Two second half goals from wing forward Bill Beckett helped Kilkenny to a comfortable victory over Wexford in last night's Leinster IHC semi-final at Wexford Park.

Kilkenny 2-16
Wexford 0-13

After his controversial week, Wexford centre back Greg Jacob opted out of the team picture, arriving on the pitch after the formalities were out of the way. The home side started brightly, racing into a 0-3 to 0-1 lead after seven minutes thanks to scores from John Roche, Tommy Dwyer and Eoin Quigley. But with Eoin Guinan in unerring form, Kilkenny recovered to lead by 0-11 to 0-7 at the break.

And the visitors tightened their grip on proceedings after the restart when goals from Beckett in the 38th and 50th minutes saw them through to another provincial decider.

Kilkenny - L Tierney; M Phelan, P Murphy, K Mooney; J Cottrell, R Cody, N Doherty; P Hartley, N Walsh (0-1); B Beckett (2-2), R Dollard (0-2), N Cleere; M Grace, P Cleere (0-1), E Guinan (0-9, 6f). Subs: E Murphy for Dollard, S O'Shea for Phelan, N Doherty for Grace.

Wexford - D Flynn; J Roche (0-1, 1f), K Kavanagh, B Kehoe; J O'Connor (0-1), G Jacob, P Whitley; M Molloy, E Quigley (0-4); D Nolan, P Nolan, T Dwyer (0-3, 2f); MJ Furlong, J Gahan (0-1), C O'Connor. Subs: T O'Leary for Nolan, E Moore (0-3, 2f) for Furlong, M Doyle for O'Connor, M Regan for Whitley, J Reck for O'Leary.

Ref: A Lagrue (Kildare) Tweet

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