The surest sign that the world has changed is that this Leinster final replay turned out as it was supposed to. Time was, Galway would be spooked and strangled and swallowed whole by Kilkenny when it really mattered and that option was certainly open to them here. Instead, Micheál Donoghue's side buried Kilkenny, let them breathe for a bit and then buried them again.
Until this year, nobody had beaten Kilkenny twice in the same championship; here, Galway beat them twice in the same afternoon. They were 12 points ahead coming up on half-time and saw that lead eroded down to just one on 55 minutes. Yet they saw out the remainder of the afternoon as much the better side ought to, grinding Kilkenny to sand and taking home a 1-28 to 3-15 victory. Changed times indeed.
Things are different now. Galway are the hammer and for as long as they remind themselves of that fact, everyone else is the nail.
Kilkenny hung in this one partly through race memory, partly through the benign eye of referee James Owens who should have done them for overcarrying on one and possibly two of their goals. But there was never a sense that Galway were anything other than the stronger, sharper, more dominant team. A seven-point margin at the end felt about right.
“Anyone that thinks a hurling game at this level, you’re going to dominate for 70 minutes, knows nothing about it,” Donoghue said afterwards.
“We knew and expected nothing less from Kilkenny. They were going to come back, they’ve proven it all season. The calibre of team that they have, they’re still going to have a massive say in this championship. Every day, we keep saying the same thing – we’ll get the work-ons from and the learnings from this game now.”
They play with the knowledge that being 12 points down is only a point away from being 11 down
The crowd of 25,102 might sound meagre enough for a Leinster final replay, until you remind yourself that this was these sides’ sixth game of the summer apiece. You wouldn’t blame anyone for sitting one out in the cool of their living room rather than in the blaze of another 27-degree day in Thurles.
John Mullane reported on RTÉ Radio that the pitch in Semple Stadium had been treated to 60,000 litres of water during the week. Whatever it took, the teams got a significantly greener pasture on which to play than Cork and Clare did seven days previously.
A contest
They more than did it justice, too. Johnny Glynn was the not-so-secret late inclusion for Galway at full-forward and he set about Pádraig Walsh with relish.
He proceeded to scatter the whole of the Kilkenny full-back line with the divil's glee of a lad who turns up at a coconut shy with a basketball under his arm. Galway were 1-7 to 0-1 up after 16 minute – Glynn scored 1-1 and in the mushroom cloud around him Conor Whelan and Cathal Mannion snatched a point apiece.
Mannion went on to finish the day with six points from play, Whelan with four. Between that full-forward line and a monstrous first half by their half-back line, Galway had Kilkenny on toast for long stretches. They were 1-15 to 0-6 ahead on 33 minutes, after which it should never have been a contest.
But Kilkenny gonna Kilkenny. They are For Want Of A Nail in reverse. They play with the knowledge that being 12 points down is only a point away from being 11 down, which is only a goal away from being eight down, and on and on and on they go. Ger Aylward kicked a goal before half-time, Colin Fennelly scrubbed one home soon after the break, Richie Hogan whipped on a loose ball for their third on 55 minutes and just like that, there was only a point in it.
The lads are very fit, they're in fantastic shape, they understand everything there is to understand about recovery
But Galway gonna Galway. They are the best for a reason, 11 games unbeaten in championship now and never looking overly flurried regardless of the scoreboard. They knuckled down to their task and saw out the rest of the game by outscoring Kilkenny by 0-8 to 0-2.
Kilkenny have played them three times this summer and been ahead for just over five minutes in total.
It's Galway's world now and Kilkenny just have to find their place in it like every other team. They move on to face Limerick next weekend, creaking and heaving under the weight of a summer quite unlike any they've experienced before
“It’s obviously tough going in the conditions we’re in,” said Cody afterwards. “Next weekend, last weekend and today is fairly exhausting for players. But the reality is we’re not going to start highlighting that because we’re just going to have to play the game.
“The lads are very fit, they’re in fantastic shape, they understand everything there is to understand about recovery. That’s what they’re focusing on right now, getting themselves ready. It will take a few days. It’s not a question of training now, it’s a question of recovering to go again.”
They will need to, for the summer only has five games left in it altogether. One false move from here on out brings an all-too swift end to proceedings.
