Bonnar: Whoever beats Cats will win All-Ireland

IT must be said Colm Bonnar didn’t contribute to the high hopes expressed in the build-up about Wexford pulling off a surprise.

He knew what Kilkenny were all about and dismissed the epitaphs and eulogies that were paid to them following their humbling league final defeat to Dublin.

This Kilkenny team, he knows, are far from done yet.

“Whoever can match Kilkenny or beat Kilkenny will go a very long way,” said the Cashel native. “The only team that gave them a game last year was Tipperary, and Tipperary are possibly the only team that can beat them at the moment.

“Kilkenny are still strong favourites for the All-Ireland and in my book they are a sore team, they are a hungry team and they are looking to make amends for the All-Ireland final of last year and the manner in which they lost the league.

“Kilkenny have been the best team in the last 10 years, and possibly one of the greatest teams ever. They haven’t gone away by a long shot, and I still think the team that beats Kilkenny will be the team that wins the All-Ireland final.”

Bonnar was forced to substitute his two starting midfielders as TJ Reid, Michael Rice and Michael Fennelly lorded it around the centre.

At half-time, he was presented with the details of just how bad things were for Wexford in that department.

“David Redmond is a real ball-winner but we just couldn’t get him on the ball. The first-half stats showed they won all the breaking ball from our puck-outs and put us under severe pressure. That’s something we tried to change at half-time and maybe in the first five to 10 minutes of the second-half we won more ball around that hard area.

“But Kilkenny dominated the key areas and we found it hard to get in among them. They had the hunger and I always knew they would.”

Bonnar felt another first-half goal to add to Jim Berry’s on the stroke of half-time may have changed things for Wexford

“We won the toss and we took the breeze. The sun, we felt, would be to the advantage of the forward line in the first-half.

“I felt if we got enough ball in the first 20 to 25 minutes we could score. We were unlucky with two goal chances and when you’re the underdogs you need to be taking every opportunity. You could hear the roar when we got that goal at half-time, the crowd really got behind us. If we had lifted two green flags in the first-half it would have caught the crowd and it does give the players a lift. We have to lick our wounds and there are only a few positives, we can take very little (from that game). We’re wounded and we have to look at the qualifiers.

“It’s hard to put a finger on it. We did come out with more hope and if we had taken the scores in the first-half we could have done something but ultimately Kilkenny were a stronger, physical team and they’re going to go a long way.”