All-Ireland SHC/Leinster Final: Perhaps we should date all hurling before the ascent of the current Kilkenny side as prehistoric. In Leinster anyway, writes Tom Humphries at Croke Park.
They play the game to a different level, with a different style and a keener intelligence. Yesterday they won their sixth Leinster title on the trot. No big deal. No ticker tape parade. In the province the game has been reinvented and only Kilkenny have the patent.
In all it was a sad day for hurling. Wexford competed for 35 minutes and gave the 48,840 crowd reason to suspect that there might be a cliffhanger at the end of the day. All the story lines brewed nicely in the first half. Every time Eddie Brennan fluffed a goal chance the ghost of Charlie Carter cackled and the chances of Brian Cody being burned in effigy increased. And with every block and defiant hook Wexford seemed to increase their chances of pulling off a coup.
Then the second half began and the game was gone in 60 seconds. Brennan scooted onto a loose ball 30 yards out, sped straight towards goal and slipped a low shot home. No more Charlie Carter laughs. Just the sound of the fat lady getting ready to warble.
Brennan's goal was a sickening blow to Wexford and a call to liberation to Kilkenny. Suddenly scores were falling like manna. Derek Lyng followed up with one of the four points he scored in the course of a headlining midfield display, and Sean Dowling ensured Wexford people that, yes, that feeling in their stomach was hope sinking when he drove a free over from about 105 yards.
Wexford rallied to the extent of narrowing the gap a couple of times in the second half with goals, but Kilkenny blew 2-15 past them.
In doing so Kilkenny emphasised again that they are a team who enjoy several key luxuries. They have players who can move around comfortably to positions in the forward line, Martin Comerford can go out to the wing and win ball while Henry Shefflin does the bruising in the square. DJ can burst at a defence from anywhere. Tommy Walsh, essentially a defender who started senior life as a midfielder, picks a few killer points from wing forward in every game. Wherever you put Kilkenny under pressure, so they come up with the goods elsewhere on the field.
This was a heartbreaker for Wexford, but they are becoming accustomed to grief.
"We've just had a meeting inside," said John Conran, their young manager, "and looked at what happened last year. I felt that we didn't deal with it properly last year. We kept licking our wounds. We're not licking our wounds now. We're coming out with all guns blazing.
"We may be out of the Leinster championship but we're still in the All-Ireland qualifiers and we're going to take the game to them as best as ever we can, whoever we're playing next Saturday. That's the way it's going to be. We can play better than that."
They can, and will feel that they did so maybe two months ago in Nowlan Park when they drew with Kilkenny in a league game. That day Paul Codd opened up huge gaps in the Kilkenny defence. Yesterday, however, Codd was subdued and scored just one point from play. A tough afternoon to endure when you are captaining your county.
In a way, Codd's fate underlines Kilkenny's strength. Whatever is put up to them these days they handle and go about their business. Having had a prolonged break since their last serious hurling game they now have a five-week gap before they play championship again. In Kilkenny the club championships are proceeding as normal next weekend. Priorities always right.
In Kilkenny, of course, the six-in-a-row achievement will be unheralded, but it is worth noting all the same. Six wins in succession is the measure of Kilkenny's worth and of Leinster's deficiencies. And as Brian Cody noted, Kilkenny have players in the mould of Michael Kavanagh who at just 24 now has six Leinster medals and has played in every championship game since the run started back in 1998.
"It's the first six-in-a-row," he mused. "There have been serious Kilkenny teams in every decade but we're not into comparisons. We're Leinster champions this year. It wasn't a big thing. Not a big issue. Not something that was much on the agenda."
Despite Cody's best efforts to play things down, the talk turned to the chances of Kilkenny retaining the All-Ireland this year. Lots of serious teams are left and heading into the qualifier draw this morning, but surely Kilkenny have the accumulated wisdom to do it now?
"No team has learned enough to be able to do it in 10 years now (since Kilkenny in 1992/'93) and it'll take a lot. We have a semi-final and that's as far as we can look. Teams have failed. We'll go away and think about it. For now we're very happy to be there."
Six years. These post-Leinster final pow-wows are starting to sound the same.
