Stephen Cooling struck three minutes from time to give Kildare County a share of the points in their final home game of the season after a remarkable match at Station Road.
The real hero of the day for Kilkenny was makeshift goalkeeper, Robbie Quan. When Kilkenny were reduced to ten men early in the second half after Gerry Treacy was shown a red card for bringing down Ger Robinson, Quan took his place between the sticks in the absence of a regular goalkeeper on the bench.
Quan's first duty was to face Philly Gorman's penalty and unbelievably he dived low to his right to palm the ball away.
Bottom-of-the-table Kilkenny arrived in Newbridge determined to make a fight of the game and they were full value for their lead when they opened the scoring after 31 minutes albeit in fortunate circumstances.
Stephen Grant collected Timmy Kiely’s short corner and crossed into the Kildare area where the unfortunate Stephen Cooling sliced the ball past his own ‘keeper.
That seemed to awaken Kildare and they pulled level on the stroke of half-time when Kilkenny failed to deal with Alan Byrne’s long throw and Gorman scored from close-range for his 13th goal of the season.
Gorman's joy turned to pain two minutes into the second half when Quan saved his spot-kick and things went even worse for Kildare when after a poor corner just after the hour mark, Kiely led a quick Kilkenny counter attack that ended with Grant rounding Cassidy and giving Kilkenny the lead once more.
Kildare pinned the visitors into their own after that but they failed to really test Quan and it looked like Kilkenny would hold out until Cooling struck late on after Willie Tyrell’s weak defensive header failed to clear Clancy's cross.
Kildare County: Cassidy; Donnelly (Hanaphy 79), A Byrne, P Byrne, Stapleton (Clancy 58); Brady, Cooling, Carew (Kavanagh 34), McCrossan; Gorman, Robinson.
Kilkenny City: Treacy; Ryan, O’Shea, Tyrell, Dermody; Bargary, Grant, Comerford, Mulcahy (Quan 47); O’Connor (Ryan 68), Kiely.
Referee: E. McNally (Cork).
