Cats get claws into Dublin

THE crown still rests easy, the Cats are still king – that was the message from this first of the two Leinster semi-finals in Croke Park yesterday as Kilkenny got their 2010 championship campaign off to an emphatic start.

This wasn’t just a win, this was a demolition job, a ruthless destruction of a Dublin team that many saw as being a coming force in Leinster. And with it a stark message. All the other major All-Ireland contenders have been in the ring already and made their claims, but now Kilkenny have had their say and the word is this – Kilkenny remain the team to beat, and on the evidence of this display, it’s going to take some team to beat them.

The hope for Dublin yesterday, winners already over Laois in the quarter-final, was that because this was Kilkenny’s championship opener they might be a little rusty. That hope lasted for all of half a minute, the time it took for ace goal-poacher Eddie Brennan (who else) to steal in behind the Dublin rearguard, accept a well-placed pass from new Kilkenny captain TJ Reid, and blast to the net.

Dublin recovered from that, and trailed by just two points in the 11th minute, 1-2 to 0-3, and when you consider that two of those Dublin points (Dotsy O’Callaghan with their opener, Alan McCrabbe with a 20m free) could have been goals, Anthony Daly’s men still had their hopes.

Even at half-time they were still in it, only five points behind (1-10 to 0-8), free-takers McCrabbe (5) and Henry Shefflin (7) doing most of the scoring, but it was rather a false scoreline (for the stats gurus, with a pointed 65 in the 17th minute, Henry broke Eddie Keher’s long-standing all-time championship scoring record).

A series of fine stops by Dublin keeper Gary Maguire, allied to an unsightly and uncharacteristic 10 wides by Kilkenny, kept it close, but had the champions been their normal clinical selves, it would have been over already.

On the resumption, and for the next dozen minutes or so, Dublin managed to maintain that margin, but again, only because of the heroics of Maguire, with the keeper producing three fine saves in that period.

Eventually, however, the dam burst. It started with a brilliant piece of individual play by Richie Power, now operating at full-forward, when he grabbed a high centre out around the 45m line, rounded Tomás Brady (ironically, one of Dublin’s few heroes on the day), and with a superbly controlled short-stick shot, beat Maguire from close range.

That made it 2-13 to 0-10. Dublin to their credit however kept battling and in the next quarter of an hour showed their ambition. Several opportu-nities were presented to them where they could have gone for easy points and scoreline respectability; instead they went for the goals they needed to really make a match of it. A penalty, two further close-in frees and on a couple of occasions from play, they went for the net. But each time they were denied. At least they were creating those chances, and on a day when the Kilkenny defence looked its usual suffocating self – JJ Delaney and man-of-the-match Tommy Walsh utterly dominant – they can take some comfort from that. It meant that with 10 minutes to go, and despite all those opportunities missed, there was still just nine points between them.

That was when the roof really caved in on Dublin, however. Kilkenny pounced for 2-4 without reply in those closing stages. Late sub Aidan Fogarty hit the two goals, to turn what was going to be a disappointing loss into a disheartening hammering.

“It is very hard to be positive after it,” admitted Dublin manager Anthony Daly, normally such an upbeat individual but struggling here to put any kind of gloss on things. “But sure what do we do? We have three weeks to a qualifier and we have got to get ready. We’ll get them back in Tuesday night and keep going, that’s all we can do.”

Dublin, at least, now know where they stand in relation to Kilkenny – everyone else will just have to wait their turn. I doubt that anyone will be looking forward to it with kind of relish.

“Where can ye improve?” Kilkenny manager Brian Cody was asked. “I’d say right throughout the field,” was his uncompromising reply. “We probably had a lot of wides that we shouldn’t have had and we’ll have to brush up on the handball a bit as well.”

This, after a day when he had the luxury of introducing the likes of Eoin Larkin, Derek Lyng, the aforementioned Aidan Fogarty and impressive debutant John Mulhall, while keeping the likes of Michael Kavanagh and James Ryall on the bench and Cha Fitzpatrick still to recover from injury.

Ominous, isn’t it?

Kilkenny - PJ Ryan; J Dalton, N Hickey, J Tyrell; T Walsh, B Hogan, JJ Delaney; M Rice (0-2), M Fennelly; M Comerford (0-1), R Hogan, H Shefflin (0-12); E Brennan (1-1), TJ Reid (0-2), R Power (1-0). Subs: E Larkin for R Hogan (44, 0-1)), A Fogarty (2-0)for Brennan (53), J Mulhall for Reid (53), D Lyng for Power (64).

Dublin - G Maguire; N Corcoran, T Brady, O Gough; S Hiney, J Boland (0-1), M O'Brien (0-1); J McCaffrey (0-1), S Durkin; L Rushe, L Ryan, P Kelly (0-2); D O'Callaghan (0-1), S Lambert, A McCrabbe (0-6). Subs: P Ryan for Lambert (ht), M Carton for O'Brien (45), D O'Dwyer for Durkin (45), D Treacy for O'Callaghan (51), K Flynn for L Ryan (63).

Ref - D Kirwan (Cork).