3 things we learned

Galway may have “won” the draw

He certainly had the grounds to claim a sense of injustice with the legitimacy of the free Joe Canning scored to give Galway another day out. But Brian Cody opted not to play it up afterwards. Was it because he was a little embarrassed by his remonstrations with Barry Kelly and heated words with Anthony Cunningham after the injury-time free was given? The photographs in The Irish Examiner this morning don’t paint either manager in an altogether positive light and both would be known for their calmness on the line. Interestingly, afterwards Cunningham claimed Galway had the psychological edge going into the September 30 replay. To be fair to him, Galway did fight back in the second-half when the momentum was clearly against them and they seemed to forget all the tactics they had been using to beat Kilkenny. Canning’s equalising free was the last glove laid in yesterday’s bout and the fact Galway grabbed two goals — keeping up their average of two per championship game this year — and kept James Skehill’s net untouched are major positives.

Kilkenny surely won’t be as bad again

Yes, they almost won the game, but it would have gone down as the greatest get-out-of-jail performance by Kilkenny in an All-Ireland final under Brian Cody. As DJ Carey said afterwards, there was no one individual match-up in the first-half where Kilkenny had the upper hand. But, for some, the bad form continued long after the interval. Colin Fennelly was the only player called ashore, but he wasn’t the worst performer in a stripey jersey. His older brother Michael Fennelly, last year’s hurler of the year, had a mediocre game and certainly Richie Hogan’s size made him a target for Iarla Tannian to run at time and time again in the closing stages. Richie Power delivered a so-so performance in keeping with what has been an overall disappointing campaign for the Carrickshock man. If the Kilkenny attack were the winning of the semi-final, their back-line was the saving of yesterday’s game. They still have the ability to sync a complete performance.

By no means a classic

It had drama, it has all of us enthralled up until Barry Kelly’s final whistle, but held up against the last three All-Ireland finals (well, mostly 2009 and 2010), its quality pales in comparison. Nineteen of the 35 scores were from placed balls with Kilkenny managing just eight scores from play opposed to Galway’s 2-5. The wide counts were incredibly high too, Galway going well into double figure with 13 while Kilkenny had eight, seven of them coming in their forgettable first-half. But, for Niall Burke’s goal which came against the run of play, his 37th minute point was their only score from play in the second-half. In the first-half, Kilkenny mustered only three points outside of Henry Shefflin’s frees. Those stats lean towards great days for both defences and certainly Paul Murphy, Brian Hogan, Fergal Moore and Johnny Coen were in excellent form but there was plenty of under-performing.

Words: John Fogarty