Grand slam on cards after Galway stroll

Galway 1-19 Cork 1-13

The victory is all the more meritorious in that it was Galway’s first outing in the championship while Cork were playing their fourth match, a statistic that worried their coach Vincent Mullen in the lead-up to the game: “I knew we had a very good team but when they weren’t tested, there was always the concern that we weren’t as good as we looked on paper”, said Mullen.

“After losing to Kilkenny in Portlaoise last year we were hugely disappointed and vowed to at least get back to the final again, and have achieved that without playing as well as we can.