Marksman Burke steering Dublin in right direction

Burke hit 1-5 from play and landed five more points from placed balls as Donoghue master-minded a win over his native Galway who he led to the 2017 All-Ireland title.

Donal Burke of Dublin in action against Padraic Mannion, left, and Cianan Fahy of Galway. Pic: Daire Brennan, Sportsfile

All-Ireland SHC: Dublin 2-27 Galway 1-24

Dublin manager Micheal Donoghue praised sharpshooter Donal Burke for putting his injury nightmare behind him to steer them into a Leinster final showdown against champions Kilkenny.

Burke, who missed Na Fianna’s march to their first county title after picking up a hamstring injury last summer that hampered him until recent months, hit 1-5 from play and landed five more points from placed balls as Donoghue master-minded a win over his native Galway who he led to the 2017 All-Ireland title.

Burke led the way as Dublin made the most of the dismissal of Galway’s 2017 skipper David Burke after just 16 minutes and his accuracy from all angles was a key factor in their success in front of a crowd of 8,087 at Pearse Stadium.

“Unbelievable for a fella who had a really significant injury and how he has worked himself back into it and in fairness to him he’s getting in form as we progress in the championship. It’s great to see,” said Donoghue.

The dismissal of Burke for a late challenge on Fergal Whitely was a key factor, with Galway ahead by five at that point but had their lead cut to two by the interval, before Dublin made full use of the wind after the restart and pulled away.

Galway manager Henry Shefflin felt the Dublin management — which also includes the Galway selectors from 2017 Franny Forde and Noel Larkin — helped influence the decision by the referee Colm Lyons and his linesman Niall Malone, but Donoghue, understandably, was not entering that debate.

“I’m not getting into that. For me it is about us and the performance we get and I’m not going to detract from that,” he said.

“For ourselves the trajectory of the round robin has gone well. I think we were building game on game and now these lads have a Leinster final to look forward to.

“The challenge here was to see could we build on last week’s performance. We ran Kilkenny close, it was a really good performance and we were disappointed not to get something from it, but the key for us today was to make sure we came and performed.

“When you look at this group it is a predominantly young group and the challenge with a group like that is to amass as much experience as possible in big, meaningful games. We will just focus on recovery now and get ready for two weeks.” Burke said they have unfinished business after letting Kilkenny off the hook last weekend but he’s just delighted to be back performing at the top level after his prolonged hamstring injury.

“Kilkenny will be another tough task but it’s full steam ahead now. We knew how tough it would be against Galway so we are just delighted to get the win,” said Burke.

“We probably left it behind us last week but thankfully we got over the line now. It’s great to be in a Leinster final.

“It was tougher than I expected getting back, just getting to the pace of the game but thankfully the last couple of weeks have been that bit sharper. We just need to keep the momentum going.” A goal after 40 seconds from Sean Currie, after they elected to play against the wind, was a huge boost for Dublin. They were trailing by 0-9 to 1-1 when David Burke, playing his 75th championship match, was red-carded for a late challenge on Fergal Whitely and in the ensuing eight minutes Dublin outscored Galway by 0-6 to 0-2 and turned around trailing by just 0-19 to 2-11 after Burke blasted low to the net three minutes from the break.

Dublin took control after the restart and hit Galway for six points without reply in the opening eleven minutes with Chris Crummey, who finished with 0-4 from wing-back, leading the way along with Burke.

Galway were unable to cope with Dublin’s pace and aerial power and the Tribesmen, having had all eleven forwards from the full-back upwards on the scoreboard by the interval, managed only three pointed frees from Evan Niland in the opening 27 minutes of the second half.

Dublin hit 0-11 in that segment and by the end 14 players hit the target as they picked off some great scores.

Galway drafted in Johnny Glynn, who had come back from America for this year’s championship, but he lasted just four minutes before going off with a shoulder injury.

Galway, trailing by 2-22 to 0-22, got a glimmer of hope from another substitute when Declan McLoughlin blasted home a goal after 62 minutes.

But the Dublin response was good. Darragh Power brought his haul to three points and when Tom Monaghan replied for Galway, Dublin hit the next three points from skipper Paddy Smyth, Conor Donoghue and Colin Currie to kill off any notion of a revival as they ran out deserved winners.

Scorers for Dublin: D Burke 1-10 (0-3f, 0-2 ’65), C Crummey 0-4, D Power 0-3, S Currie 1-0, F Whitely 0-1, C Burke 0-1, B Hayes 0-1, J Bellew 0-1, R Hayes 0-1, D Purcell 0-1, D Sutcliffe 0-1, P Smyth 0-1, C Donoghue 0-1, C Currie 0-1.

Scorers for Galway: E Niland 0-8 (0-6f), C Cooney 0-3, D McLoughlin 1-0, T Monaghan 0-2, J Cooney 0-2, C Fahy 0-2, G Lee 0-1, S Linnane 0-1, J Flynn 0-1, David Burke 0-1, C Whelan 0-1, P Mannion 0-1, A Tuohey 0-1.

Dublin: S Brennan; J Bellew, E O’Donnell, P Smyth; C Crummey, C Donohoe, P Doyle; B Hayes, C Burke; D Sutcliffe, D Burke, S Currie; F Whiteley, D Purcell, R Hayes. Subs: C Currie for Whiteley (17-19), D Power for Whitely (47), C Currie for Purcell (57), M Grogan for R Hayes (68), L Murphy for B Hayes (73).

Galway: D Fahy; J Grealish, Daithi Burke, F Burke; A Tuohey, P Mannion, C Fahy; David Burke, S Linnane; G Lee, J Flynn, J Cooney; C Whelan, C Cooney, E Niland. Subs: C Mannion for Linnane (44), J Glynn for Flynn (44), T Monaghan for Glynn (49), D Mc Loughlin for J Cooney (60), R Glennon for C Fahy (67).

Referee: Colm Lyons (Cork).