Buckley bids to banish the blues

The shock waves that followed Galway’s barely believable schooling of Kilkenny in last Sunday’s Leinster final will have an effect in many different ways over the coming months, and not just in the belief that suddenly more teams have a chance of winning the Liam MacCarthy Cup.

The first reverberation is the closing of ranks within the Kilkenny camp. Cillian Buckley played in that game and was in Portlaoise yesterday for a press event ahead of tonight’s Leinster U21 decider at O’Moore Park.

Senior boss Brian Cody had instructed him not to talk about what happened in Croke Park but there was no hiding the disappointment, nor the desire to get back up on the horse quickly.