Cats getting up to speed as the Dubs come apart
Kilkenny 3-25
Dublin 0-17
A BLOW-BY-BLOW account of this game would demand the concentration of an accountant and the constitution of a mortician.
Kilkenny scored with an ease that was more untroubled as the game went on. Dublin, who were three wins from their first three matches, rarely played like a side who had made such a solid start. Their schedule was weighted in favour of a quick beginning, but it also included a tight, well-earned win over Wexford.
There was none of that moxie on display here. They folded entirely in the second half after almost keeping in step with Kilkenny in the opening 35 minutes.
The teams went in at the break with three between them, Kilkenny on 1-11 and Dublin 0-11.
The Cats added 2-14 in the second half, Dublin squeezed out a miserable six points – two of them from play. The winners were brilliant in beautiful conditions, keeping the temperature high even as the evening cooled following a fine day in the capital.
Kilkenny look more convincing with each outing, and the impression left after this is of a finely balanced side that can score freely but defend resolutely, too.
There is a mathematical possibility of them not getting out of the group, but it is highly improbable. They and Dublin are on six points, one behind the leaders Galway who are on seven, with Wexford in fourth place on four points.
Wexford go to Nowlan Park on Saturday, while Dublin go to Salthill. There is a scenario in which Kilkenny could miss out, but it would need Wexford to beat them by 30 points.
Given the form of this side and the mood of their manager, expect a home win in that one.
Brian Cody has sometimes looked a man struggling to keep pace with the changes in the modern game, but one wonders if that view is sometimes prejudiced by the fact that he has been around so long: in his 23rd Championship season, this was his 107th Championship match in charge of the county.
That’s a phenomenal record, but the way he is building a team fit for the purposes of competing at the top end of the modern game is laudable, too.
The notion that he was wedded only to the classical version of the game has been consistently undermined by the evidence of his selections and tactics, going all the way back to the 2006 final at least, when the awesome physical performance of his side left Cork bewildered in the final.
Memories of that match were occasionally stirred by the performance of his forwards last evening.
Adrian Mullen was superb in the middle third, along with Cian Kenny and Alan Murphy.
The last two named were the starting centre-fielders, even though neither had been named in the original starting team. Their selection were among four changes made by Cody.
There might have been a time when Kilkenny eschewed dummy teams, but it’s long gone. There is nobody in Gaelic games who appreciates more, or better encapsulates, the reality that you do all you can, within the laws of the game and while pushing those boundaries to their absolute limits, than Brian Cody.
TJ Reid had a quiet first half but was unmarkable in the second.
He got Kilkenny’s third goal in the 55th minute, which put them nine ahead. This was eight minutes after Mossy Keoghan had got his, and the side’s second goal. That was probably the hinge moment in the game, as Dublin had manfully pegged back a five-point lead Kilkenny opened after half time.
Sean Brennan in the Dublin goal looked wrong-footed by Keoghan’s second, perhaps unsighted by two defenders standing in front of him.
It did for Dublin, whatever the precise status of the keeper’s lines of vision.
Dublin went to pieces thereafter. Kilkenny tightened up, dropping Richie Reid back in front of the fullback line in a belt-and-braces display of defensive caution.
It was hardly required, given how hard the home team were finding it to win anything resembling decent ball, but Cody could afford to use a
sweeper as his side were so dominant.
This was notable on Eoin Murphy’s puck-outs, where he went long time after time, and the sliothar usually stuck. Eoin Cody fizzed in patches in a forward line directed by Reid and Keoghan, and there was simply nothing Mattie Kenny could summon from Dublin’s resources to compete.
Their only hope of respectability was the free-taking of Dónal Burke. He has been in terrific form over placed balls this season, but his accuracy wavered in a demoralising second period, too.
The difficulty for Kenny will be trying to salvage morale after a double-scores defeat like this.
What had been an encouraging month of action for the Dublin hurlers looks a good deal less promising this morning.
They should still claim the third place in the group, and with it a preliminary quarter-final.
But there was only one team in Parnell Park yesterday that looked fit for competing at the sharpest level of the game this summer.
Kilkenny look good enough to go deep into this helter-skelter ride through the hurling Championship this summer.
An old force stirs.
KILKENNY: E Murphy; M Butler (D Blanchfield 68), C Delaney, T Walsh; M Carey, P Deegan, R Reid; C Kenny, A Murphy (C Fogarty 59); W Walsh (J Donnelly h-t), P Walsh (B Ryan 48), A Mullen (C Buckley 66); M Keoghan, TJ Reid, E Cody.
SCORERS: TJ Reid 1-7 (0-5f), M Keoghan 2-1, A Mullen 0-5, C Kenny 0-4, A Murphy 0-3, E Cody 0-2, B Ryan, J Donnelly, C Buckley 0-1 each.
DUBLIN: S Brennan; J Madden, E O’Donnell (J Bellew 63), C O’Callaghan; D Ryan, P Smyth, D Grey (A Dunphy 59); C Burke, C Crummey; D Burke, R McBride (A Keogh 66), D Sutcliffe; F Whitely, R Hayes (E Dillon 55), A Mellett (M Schutte 33).
SCORERS: D Burke 0-8 (7f), C Crummey 0-2, C Burke 0-2, D Grey, R McBride, F Whitely, M Schutte and E Dillon 0-1 each. REfEREE: Thomas Walsh (Waterford)