Dempsey: Cats went back to basics for replay

Kilkenny selector Michael Dempsey has lifted the lid on his side’s preparations for the drawn All-Ireland SHC final, and subsequent victory over Galway.

The Cats adopted a defensive man-marking strategy when the sides met on September 9 but went back to basics for last Sunday’s Championship glory at Croke Park.

But Dempsey admitted there was good reason for their changed tactical approach when the sides met last month.

“Galway didn’t score a huge amount from play in the drawn match, though maybe it did disrupt our own game to some extent. Then again Galway pose a different challenge to what we normally meet.

“They play a very defensive game, drop back a lot of players and we had to change and adapt to that. It’s a little bit unnerving for players when you come up against a system you’re not used to playing.

“We felt we had to adapt and take that into account. But that can take from your own performance, insofar as you’re thinking more about the opposition than about getting your own performance right.

“After the draw, and with the benefit of hindsight, we felt we had to change again for the replay and go back to our own game and concentrate on our own performance. Did we get it wrong the first day? Maybe we did, but we got it right the last day!”

There was no problem either with getting the players ready. The consensus was that, physically at least, the draw would discommode Brian Cody’s side more than Galway. The thinking by many was that the Kilkenny players had been on the road so long with so many hard miles on the clock that getting them ready for a second All-Ireland final in three weeks would be a challenge.

Not so, says Dempsey. “A lot of people felt we might have been deflated after the drawn match but we weren’t. We were disappointed, obviously, we hadn’t done what we’d wanted to do at the first time of asking, but it then became just another block of training. We approached it as we had all the other games all year. The first week was about getting fellas relaxed and recovered. The second week we got some hurling done but we didn’t go too mad, we didn’t push the boat out too much. The last week was just about sharpening up and getting ready for the replay. It wasn’t a huge challenge, we simply applied the same principles we had for every other game throughout the year. You have to be careful, you’re not going to get fellas any fitter at this stage of the year, it’s more psychological really. You want them to get their bodies right, yes, but you also want them to get their attitude right again. You want them to get their energy levels back to where they were before the drawn match. You want to make sure they’re healthy and fresh enough for the challenge again.”

And that’s the key, says the man charged with having Kilkenny in peak condition for game after game — attitude. “People have been saying for a few years now that the legs are going from a lot of players but that simply isn’t true. Their fitness levels will match that of any team in the country, they’re absolutely brilliant trainers and it is a privilege to work with them. I think it’s more an attitude question. How do you retain that huge hunger that’s required to go out and win these big matches? How do you have that hunger every day you go out? That is the challenge. If you’re only a little bit off, your performance will suffer and you become vulnerable. It’s not their legs, it’s not their hurling, it’s just to have that ravenous hunger when you go out to play the likes of Galway or anyone else.”

And how do you infuse that hunger into a team? A make a player who has won everything, whose appetites should be sated, how do you infuse them with hunger for more? You don’t. They have it, or they don’t. Kilkenny? It’s endemic.