‘It mightn’t have been a pretty final, but it is pretty for Galway... the result is all we wanted today’

For Tony Ward, it was quite the afternoon.

At the sounding of the full-time whistle in the All-Ireland intermediate decider, the Galway boss went hurtling down the tunnel underneath the Hogan Stand.

Celebrations would have to wait; his day’s work was far from complete.

Part one accomplished yes, but the O’Duffy Cup was the piece of silverware he had come to Croke Park for.

Senior glory was delivered two hours later and Ward stands out as the only man to lead Galway to All-Ireland success, having been at the helm when the county annexed their maiden senior title back in 1996.

“It’s absolutely brilliant, crowns a great year,” he smiled after taking Galway to two titles on the one afternoon.

“The result is all we wanted today, we said to the girls last Tuesday night that we didn’t care if it finished 0-2 to 0-1 as long as we had the 0-2 points.

“When you get to an All-Ireland final, the important thing is to win it. We have had great performances in the last ten and 12 years in finals and still came out the wrong end of the result.

“It mightn’t have been a pretty final, but it is pretty for Galway. We are All-Ireland champions and the O’Duffy Cup is going across the Shannon today along with the McGrath Cup, which is a great achievement for us.

“The hurt of previous final defeats played a big factor. You could see it at half-time. All we had to ask them at half-time was to believe, believe they could win this game.”

Galway trailed by the minimum when Ailish O’Reilly plundered the only goal approaching the interval. Thereafter, momentum swung the way of the westerners and while they never moved out of sight, Kilkenny were always kept at arm’s reach.

“The 1-2 before half-time probably rocked Kilkenny. Just out of the side of my eye I could see the Kilkenny management and they were a bit dazzled and that was good for us.

“Our six backs were absolutely brilliant. They played out of their skins. Therese (Maher) at centre-back was outstanding; she got ball after ball and had great support.”

Joint Kilkenny manager Graham Dillon didn’t argue the result, but rued his side’s poor showing.

“They never got going. They probably know themselves they didn’t give a great account of their hurling and while you couldn’t question their work-rate, they never seemed to get going. We never seemed to click, the bit of luck never went our way. Galway are the deserving winners, they were the better team. Being here a couple times before stood to them and speaking to the girls in the dressing room afterwards, our message was to take heart from what Galway have done, keep at it and there is definitely an All-Ireland in that dressing room.”