Cats keep their cool when the heat is on

ON the way to Dublin yesterday, watching the reading rising on the thermometer, I was fearful that this Leinster final was going to be a hard day for lads with a lot of mileage under their belts.

The likes of Noel Hickey, Jackie Tyrell, Brian Hogan, Tommy Walsh, Henry Shefflin, Eoin Larkin are young men but have packed a tremendous amount of hurling into the last decade.

I was wondering — would they be able for the heat and would they be able to handle the pace of a major championship final for a full 70 minutes?

Though I had tipped them to win here on Saturday (along with Limerick and Galway — I hope ye did the treble!) I was a bit fearful for them, on such an energy-sapping day.

Should I ever have worried? I met a Kilkenny-man afterwards, former team captain Denis Byrne, and he said to me — “We’re only really good in Kilkenny when the heat comes on!”

I took that to mean the heat on the field, and the heat off it, and it explains everything about this game, doesn’t it? This was Kilkenny as we all know them — in any sport, is there a better team to put the opposition to the sword, especially an opposition they see as posing a potential threat?

A few months ago Dublin beat them in the league final. But it was a very different Kilkenny team to the one we saw in Croke Park yesterday. This was the real Kilkenny team, and boy, what a display of power hurling they put on.

In that league final we saw something we very rarely see, a Kilkenny team blown away physically and mentally.

At the time everyone had remarked on how powerful Dublin had become, how they could brush even Kilkenny aside. Check back however and you’ll find one pundit who wasn’t fooled; I always figured Kilkenny were pulling the wool over our eyes. After yesterday, I’m convinced of it.

Some of the tackling yesterday was borderline, by both teams, and I think Barry Kelly was right to let it flow. But, six yellow cards for Kilkenny — I think that will tell you which side was hitting harder and was more up for this.

Every score Kilkenny got was a team score, a mark of this side for so many years. There was no unselfish play, no selfish player. The goals especially showed this attitude at their best. Dublin simply had no answer.

And here now, a declaration: I will say now too something I have never said before, because I’ve been keeping my powder dry. I didn’t see Christy Ring, nor Mackey, nor any of the greats from all the early decades of hurling, but I have seen a lot of good ones.

The greatest of all I’ve seen, however, and yesterday finally convinced me, is Henry Shefflin. Coming back from two cruciate knee operations, the way he led this team yesterday was just fantastic. His free-taking was immaculate, as usual, his point-scoring superb, his goal emphatic, his workrate never dropped, but above all was his intelligence.

We’re privileged to be seeing this man still in his prime, so lucky that he has made such a full recovery.

I felt Dublin were very nervous yesterday, it even came through in an interview with Anthony Daly before the game.

I know Kilkenny hit them hard from the first whistle but Dublin have been hit a few times this year — they never had the composure they had in those earlier games. They went back to individual play, they lost concentration in defence, were very naïve and allowed Kilkenny through far too easily. Were it not for the outstanding free-taking of Paul Ryan they wouldn’t have been within an asses’ roar of Kilkenny. They saw this juggernaut coming, and maybe that was their problem — they froze in the headlights.

Summing up, class will always out; I’m not saying here that this Dublin team doesn’t have it, but as I said on Saturday, I doubted they would be able to measure up to a full-strength full-power Kilkenny, and I was right.

They might make that long-awaited breakthrough — and their minors did beat Kilkenny yesterday — but I don’t think it will be this year.

The biggest challenge now for Anthony Daly is to get this team ready for the quarter-final.