So where do vanquished Cork go from here?
At times, this Galway side looked truly magnificent
SO GOOD they won it twice. Galway led by 11 points after 25 minutes. By the 33rd minute, they had matched their total from the drawn game, Joseph Cooney’s first point taking them to 1-15 two minutes before half time.
Kilkenny, cratered by the tireless savagery of Galway’s approach, scrambled only six points in response.
And yet, in the 55th minute, when Richie Hogan swept in Kilkenny’s third goal of the game, the Galway advantage was shrunk to just a solitary point.
All those stripy old phobias that are said to run through the Galway psyche like smouldering fuses were, it seemed, about to explode.
Had they done so, the short and long-term damage to the champions could have been catastrophic. Not only would the losers have to face Limerick in a quarter-final this weekend, but frittering away a huge advantage would summon all the old slanders against Galway hurling once more.
They were dispelled last September, but had they lost their nerve here and let Kilkenny win this match, a contest Galway dominated in the first half, all those calumnies would be used against them.
Faced with a resurgent opponent, they responded like winners. They scored eight points in the next 15 minutes, against just two for Kilkenny. They should have had a goal when Jason Flynn fetched a long ball in time added on, but caromed a shot into the ground that Kilkenny goalkeeper Eoin Murphy could push aside.
By then they were clear, however, free of Kilkenny but also of hang-ups with this particular opponent that have traipsed after them for years.
Against their wishes, this turned out to be a replay that roared with intensity and excitement. Its relation to last week’s tied final was that of a moth to a butterfly, of sun to rain, of November to July.
Where the draw was marked by errors and half-cocked intensity, this game snorted from the start. Given they had the most room to improve, the champions were mostly responsible. Their entire temper was different. Snatches of proof emerged within moments of throw-in. Micheál Donoghue was edgy and reactive on the sideline. He responded instantly and passionately to the action no matter what shape it took, from the good play of his team to refereeing decisions. He stood on the edge of the sideline, only retreating to take
rapid swigs from a water bottle.
An early adjudication by Hawkeye ruled a free by Joe Canning wide, but technology would no more check the champions than Kilkenny would. They looked magnificent at times. Daithí Burke played like a hurler of the year at full back. Aidan Harte was stylish at wing back.
Under dropping balls, their defence was certain and smooth.
And from a three-minute period just after the quarter-hour mark, they milked a goal and three points. All had the same root, long balls sent speeding in on top of Johnny Glynn.
Pádraig Walsh was handsomely praised for how well he filled the Kilkenny full-back shirt a week earlier, but Galway targeted him and his colleagues here, and they could not cope.
Only isolated cheers rose from within the clusters of Kilkenny supporters, and they sought solace in lukewarm drinks and
melting ice-cream at half time with their team nine points down.
Theirs is the spirit that will not buckle, though.
Brian Cody introduced Richie Hogan and Colin Fennelly at half time. They are players who would lead his forward line but for injuries, and they scored 1-1 from play apiece in the second period.
They led the terrorising of Galway, their goals sourced in opportunism and scrappiness.
Black and amber now bloomed like bog heather. With Hogan’s goal shaving Galway’s lead back to a point, the conditions for victory familiar to three generations of champions tutored by Cody were in place. Yet this time there was no decisive blast of scores to topple a faltering rival.
Galway lived through the barrage and pointed their way to safety. Joe Canning’s afternoon was not a distillation of his very best play, but he is indisputably a leader now, to match the Burkes and Gearóid McInerney in this team.
Seconds after Hogan’s goal, he sent a shot fizzing over Murphy’s bar to push Galway’s lead back out to two. A minute later, Kilkenny’s Conor Fogarty had a point ruled wide by Hawkeye.
Cathal Mannion pitched over two rousing scores for the men from the west.
When circumstances demanded it, they produced the coolness
Vanquished Cody showed his class with fans in defeat