'We're delighted to be in it . . we know what's waiting for us in the final'

IN KEEPING with the Allianz League denouements on warm April afternoons, yesterday in Páirc Uí Chaoimh Dublin were in a huddle in the middle of the field when the stadium announcer broke the news that they would be playing Kilkenny in this year’s final.

Manager Anthony Daly, who has had a memorable league campaign shuffling his resources to meet each injury concern while watching his team eke out tight wins in some big matches, is nearly breathless outside the dressingroom.

“We haven’t had time to think about it,” he said. “We’re delighted to be in it anyway and have to get our heads around it very quickly because we know what’s waiting for us in the final.”

Kilkenny await and 10 months ago the same opponents gave Dublin a sound beating in the Leinster championship, leaving Daly downbeat in the caverns beneath Croke Park.

Now his team approach the county’s first league final in 65 years. He knows Dublin’s hurlers – long strangers to hype – are about to be entangled in the publicity attending a possible double with the footballers in their final next Sunday.

“In Dublin you’ve that bit of extra you wouldn’t have somewhere else. Hopefully the Leinster final experience of two years ago (a narrower defeat by Kilkenny) will stand to us.”

As ever he worries about the championship and the resentment his team’s high living will likely provoke in opponents, in this case Offaly, who underwent the inverse of Dublin’s experience, watching Wexford’s late goal in Thurles end their Division One status.

“Joe Dooley’s probably smirking now,” says Daly unknowingly. “I presume they stayed up – did they nahhht! Oh Janey I didn’t mean it like that now but [recovering the anxiety complex just in time] even more so Offaly will be waiting for us in the long grass.”

Cork’s manager Denis Walsh is less animated. “I only take positives out of it, to be honest with you. I don’t think the players will be too happy with me saying that but I feel we came back during the week from training camp and we knew Dublin would be physical and running at you and really flying with momentum. I think we matched them for the most part.

“We were probably unlucky to concede a goal and a point together and we missed a free and a handy score just after half-time. Simple little things like that are the difference between getting over the line and not.”