Draw gave Galway psychological edge

Final Debate: Who does the replay least suit?

The Americans, as always, have a great description for it — a draw is like kissing your sister.

Neither Kilkenny or Galway got what they came for in Croke Park on September 9, the first draw in an All-Ireland SHC final since 1959. At the final whistle, however, which side was more happier? Galway, if you’re to believe their manager Anthony Cunningham.

“I’d say if you were seven or eight years on the go with six or seven finals in a row, you’d say ‘Jaysus not another one’ because you want the season to finish,” he said.

“But these lads [his own] just love playing in these matches now and they have got huge confidence from that. There’s wasn’t an anti-climax in our dressing room. We were lucky to have got the draw really and showed composure right at the death.”

Perhaps the ‘composure right at the death’ line offers the answer, rather than what Anthony said earlier. In the 68th minute of the drawn game, scores even, Henry Shefflin stood over a penalty. A goal would have given Galway an Everest to climb but Henry opted for certainty and hit the ball high over the crossbar and trusted his defence to do the rest.

His trust might well have been rewarded too, but for two events deep into injury-time. First, Galway sub Davy Glennon won vital possession inside Kilkenny territory and did what most of this fleet-footed Galway side have been doing all year, ran at the defence. And he drew the vital free.

I say ‘free’ because — in my eyes anyway, at first viewing and on several subsequent offerings — it wasn’t a foul. From where referee Barry Kelly was standing, it obviously looked different and as Davy went to ground, Barry went to his whistle.

From Kilkenny’s perspective, that’s the first major psychological negative.

Then there was the free-taker. Joe Canning is to Galway what Henry Shefflin is to Kilkenny, the main man.

Where Henry had dominated the second half, Joe had been quiet. It seemed everywhere Joe was, the play wasn’t. It wasn’t that Joe didn’t want the ball, it seemed like the ball didn’t want Joe.

Minutes earlier, however, he had a golden opportunity to tie up the game. A free from an easier angle than the one he now stood over. But he missed it.

With the memory of that fresh in his mind, the pressure was doubled, but added to that, the loud protestations by the Kilkenny management team were taking place yards away. As he lined himself up, the photographers stood behind for the defining shot of the game. All of that was in his peripheral vision.

But Joe drilled it. He misshit it ever so slightly but it sailed between the posts.

Very definitely, additional psychological advantage to Galway. And very definitely also, another body-blow psychologically for Kilkenny.

Focusing on those defining minutes we know this: Kilkenny had victory snatched from them; Kilkenny suffered most; they are the team whom this replay least suits.

Does that mean they’ll lose this time? Does it hell! Has there ever been a better team, or a better manager, for turning an apparent negative into a definite positive? No, there has not.

The fact remains, however, that draw was far more of a negative for the Cats than for the Tribesmen.