Leinster SHC, round one: Galway 3-25 Kilkenny 1-16
If Kilkenny thought things were bad after losing by 18 points to Galway in the league, they hadn’t seen anything yet. A league game is a league game – this was worse. They came to Salthill with everyone expecting a reaction, a balancing of the scales, the traditional Kilkennian response to setbacks since time began. Instead, Derek Lyng’s side got blown away.
The worst of it was that Galway didn’t even have to be that special to win by 15 points. Micheál Donoghue’s side are massively improved on last year but they’re still in their infancy and you wouldn’t say they’re anything for the Munster teams to worry about yet. But they squeezed the life out of Kilkenny here, frustrating them with their set-up and smothering them with their score-taking.
According to Pat Nolan, the oracle on these matters, this was Kilkenny’s biggest Leinster championship defeat since 1990. It was only their fourth time losing to the westerners in 21 Leinster championship games. Coming in here, they hadn’t lost their opening match in the province in nine years. Nobody imagines they’ll finish outside the top three when all is totted up, but that’s purely down to the thin soup of the competition around them.
“I thought we were a little bit nervy, to be honest,” said Lyng afterwards. “Obviously the last day up here wasn’t a good experience, and maybe that played on our minds a little bit. I’ve no doubt about the character in there.
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“Sport is a confidence game. It’s nothing unusual. These things can happen. It’s about character and how you turn it around now. That’s going to be asked of us and rightly so. I know they’re going to be hurting. They were hurting the last time as well. But today, it wasn’t good. I’m not happy with that.”
Galway are on the up, clearly. Donoghue has them playing a kind of 13-1 formation, frequently sucking all but one forward back to halfway or deeper. The idea is to crowd out the opposition and play on the breakaway, sometimes working it through the hands, sometimes giving their lone forward a 50/50 battle to win. Even if it can look pretty extreme at times, Kilkenny had no good answer to it here.
One thing is for sure, it doesn’t make for pretty hurling. The opening half was a grind on all fronts, Kilkenny struggling to make anything of the usual Salthill wind, Galway not making much of a fist going forward either. It was 0-5 to 0-4 after the first quarter, with TJ Reid and Aaron Niland mostly swapping frees. The whole thing felt stuck, as bad as the Saturday Salthill traffic.
The cork popped from the bottle in the 10 minutes before half-time. Rory Burke was left one-on-one with Paddy Deegan on 25 minutes and when he got out in front of a Tiernan Killeen long ball, his turn left Deegan spinning like a jewellery box ballerina. Burke skated in on goal and buried his finish past Aidan Tallis.
Galway’s second goal came through Burke as well, from the penalty spot. Again, Galway withdrew most of their players into their own half and this time it was a Cathal Mannion ball to Aaron Niland that caused the bother. Niland won a scrap with Deegan to get possession and as he bore down on goal, Mikey Carey struck him from behind to bring him down. Penalty. Black Card. Goal.
Any hope Kilkenny had of turning things around evaporated 50 seconds after the break. Darragh Morrissey bent to pick up a loose ball, only to be caught with a trailing elbow from John Donnelly. Referee Colm Lyons had the red card out in a matter of seconds. Kilkenny were already 2-8 to 0-9 behind, facing into a stiff wind. Making a game of it from there was impossible.
Galway were good, all the same. With Cathal Mannion pulling the strings and the likes of Burke, Niland and Conor Whelan all popping up with classy touches, they gradually pulled out of sight. Jason Rabbitte pinged their third goal on 49 minutes, a slick move between Mannion, Cian Daniels and Rabbitte exposing the Kilkenny cover.
Donoghue emptied the bench and poured seven points from it, two sweet ones coming from the impressive Darragh Neary. All in all, a damn good day for the home side.
“The two points,” twinkled Donoghue when asked what pleased him the most. “That was the most important thing. From our point of view when we look back on it, there will definitely be elements we weren’t happy with. When you compare our performance to some of the previous games, I don’t think we hit the heights. That’s the standard we set ourselves and demand of ourselves.”
A Galway manager griping about his team’s standards after beating Kilkenny by 15 points. Changed times.
GALWAY: D Fahy; R Glennon (0-2), C Trayers, D Morrissey; P Mannion (0-1), D Burke (0-1), G Lee (0-1); C Daniels (0-1), T Killeen; R Burke (2-2, 1-0 pen), C Mannion, J Fleming; J Rabbitte (1-1), C Whelan (0-1), A Niland (0-8, 0-6f). Subs: K Hanrahan for Morrissey (temp, 36-70 mins), T Monaghan (0-1) for Fleming (43), D Neary (0-2) for Rabbitte (56), C Molloy (0-1) for Niland (59), C Cooney (0-2) for Trayers (61), E Niland (0-1f) for R Burke (67).
KILKENNY: A Tallis; M Butler, M Carey, P Deegan; D Blanchfield, D Corcoran, R Reid; C Kenny (0-1), J Molloy (0-1); L Moore (0-1), J Donnelly, G Dunne; M Keoghan (0-1), TJ Reid (1-8, 0-7f, 1-0 pen), E Cody (0-2). Subs: T Clifford (0-1) for Dunne (h-t), E McDermott for Keoghan (46), K Doyle for Molloy (49), R Garrett for R Reid (53), S Donnelly (0-1) for Moore (61).
Referee: C Lyons (Cork).
