Over the course of 140 minutes, Kilkenny have slowly come to grips with the Galway threat, writes NICKY ENGLISH

THE LONGER the rivalry has gone on this year the less certain the outcome. I gave Galway no chance before the Leinster final but they caused Kilkenny all kinds of trouble that day and up to a point in the drawn All-Ireland three weeks ago.

But not all of the trends have been positive for them. Whereas we’d thought Galway had weaned themselves off total reliance on Joe Canning and Damien Hayes, the more the two matches went on the more their attack has looked like a Joe show.

It still poses problems for Kilkenny and there’s a big decision to be made on who marks Canning given the failures of Jackie Tyrrell the first day and JJ Delaney three weeks ago.

There were some defensive successes for Kilkenny in the All-Ireland. Tyrrell did a good job tracking Damien Hayes and Brian Hogan took a grip on the game in the second half, but with Galway having retreated the danger was Kilkenny defenders getting in each other’s way – which is how Niall Burke’s goal against the run of play happened.

The man-marking model they adopted the last day may have impacted negatively on Kilkenny in that it kept Tommy Walsh quiet and I’d say Brian Cody won’t let that happen again.

There’s one element of the three-week break that will suit Kilkenny and that’s the time of year. Already the leaves are down and the ground is so much heavier than when Galway implemented the fast striking and movement plan that worked so well in July.

It’s not that Galway can’t ‘surprise’ Kilkenny a third time; it’s that they’re unlikely to be able to do it to the same extent. If Cillian Buckley’s introduction can bring about any sort of improvement in the middle the champions can make at least some inroads into Galway’s dominance in the area.

I take the view that Kilkenny have been getting to grips with Galway and have won almost 120 out of the 140 minutes after the early hammer blows in the Leinster final. They’ve also ridden out a few sucker punches. The latest of these is having had to keep going for an unscheduled extra three weeks in unfamiliar conditions. This could prove the biggest obstacle of all but I think they have enough resilience to pull through.