NHL Division One/ Kilkenny 1-16 Galway 0-10: Kilkenny have been stalked by Galway teams in recent championship encounters but in this league, at any rate, the men from the west have been an easier proposition. They closed their league programme with a poor performance against a young Kilkenny team who finished what was a scrappy game in some style.
This loss means that Galway have no competitive outing for the next 11 weeks, which is hardly an ideal situation for last year's finalists. Kilkenny, however, have vaulted straight into the league semi-finals and look well placed to challenge for early honours.
"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't pleased," acknowledged Brian Cody afterwards. "I am not suggesting we are going to do anything special but I am happy that we have a genuine team. We were dogged and honest out there today and it was a real battle at times."
Broken ash flew in the opening exchanges and the crowd warmed as they imagined another instalment of the blood and thunder classics that these counties have produced in recent years. And although the game carried an edge throughout, what developed was a hard-fought, broken encounter with precious little open play.
Kilkenny did their block building in the first half, equalling Galway's score of seven points despite playing into a strong Atlantic wind. Eoin Larkin had a productive afternoon and there was no area of the field where the visitors were seriously troubled.
They pulled away from Galway with deceptive ease at the perfect time in the second half, posting six points without reply between the 48th and 61st minutes. Those scores included a long-range free from corner back Donnacha Cody and a glorious strike from Martin Comerford, who used the wind perfectly in delivering a point from deep in his own half.
Given Galway's laborious efforts into that wind, there was little likelihood of their making up that deficit. Instead, Kilkenny finished as though the game was target practice. Richie Power drove a penalty over the bar after making a fabulous catch which led to the initial foul. And when Power's free dropped short in the last minute, Kilkenny substitute Willie O'Dwyer punished a Tony Regan error with an efficient strike to the net. It was his side's first goal strike in some time.
"Ah, they scored a fair few in training the other night," mused Cody. "I wasn't really aware of that and it is not something I would be too concerned about."
Regan was slightly unfortunate: he was shouldered towards his own goalline and had little option but to release the ball which fell into the path of O'Dwyer, who had a busy and hard-working half hour of hurling. The Galway backline was impressive all afternoon and David Collins had an outstanding match at left wing back.
In the first half, they successfully shut down Kilkenny's attempts to play low, short passes down the middle and sent plenty of long direct ball for Galway's front men to work with. Galway's problems began and ended there. They should have landed at least four more points in the first half and, as Conor Hayes noted, Niall Healy and Richie Murray had goal chances which Galway needed.
After the break, things dried up entirely. The half-forward line ceased to be a factor. Inside, Eugene Cloonan was guided out of contention by JJ Delaney and Ger Farragher was given very few easy scoring opportunities.
"Two points from play in the second half is not going to win you too many matches," admitted Conor Hayes. "We were not good enough at all. Our defence was okay but it was disappointing to be going in level at half-time. This is a loss to us because we would have liked to have had a few more games. And we lost two of our league matches at home, which is not encouraging. But we know there is a lot more in this team and we are just going to have to work on that."
Hayes was annoyed by a challenge by Michael Kavanagh on substitute Damien Hayes and had an exchange of opinions with Kilkenny's Eoin Larkin. "Ah, I thought that was a bit harsh. Kilkenny were given a sideline ball when maybe it could have been a free for us. But those things happen."
KILKENNY: PJ Ryan; M Kavanagh, JJ Delaney, D Cody (0-1, free); M Fennelly, J Tennyson, T Walsh; J Tyrell, M Rice (0-1); M Comerford (0-2), R Power (0-4, three frees, one penalty), E Larkin (0-3); E McCormack, J Fitzpatrick (0-1), A Fogarty (0-2). Subs: W O'Dwyer (1-1) for E McCormack (half-time), J Ryall (0-1) for J Tyrell (half-time).
GALWAY: L Donoghue; D Joyce, T Óg Regan, G Mahon; D Hardiman, C Dervan, D Collins; F Healy, S Kavanagh; D Tierney, D Forde, R Murray (0-1); G Farragher (0-6, four frees), E Cloonan, N Healy (0-3). Subs: A Callanan for D Forde (48 mins), D Hayes for E Cloonan (61 mins).
Referee: B Kelly (Westmeath).
