Kilkenny hang on in thriller with Dubs as Lyng satisfied with Cats' effort
THE THICK OF IT: Kilkenny manager Derek Lyng during the game with Dublin at UPMC Nowlan Park. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
The easy thing to do would be to criticise.
Derek Lyng wasn't having it though, not after watching his team dig deep to secure a fourth consecutive win in the Leinster SHC and, by extension, their provincial final place.
Billy Ryan's 69th-minute goal eventually settled a cracking contest which Kilkenny had led by 14 points at half-time, and by 16 early in the second-half, only to have it whittled down to two late on.
Manager Lyng said he's sure there'll be a few who will suggest that the great Kilkenny teams he played on would never have left such a lead slip.
And he was keen to respond to them.
"We're comparing all the time, to the past teams, and we have to stop doing that," said Lyng. "We have a team here that's competing really well and competing hard. We got the two points. Are we happy that somebody else got back into the game?
"We're not at all but at the same time, I think there's probably a narrative that we're going to be the team that was there 10 or 15 years ago, whatever it was. That's not the case. This is Kilkenny of 2025. These lads are working really hard. We have a lot of injuries. We've got lads coming back.
"We're balancing all of that and the attitude and the spirit in there is really good."
They could hardly claim anyway that a Brian Cody side never coughed up a 16-point lead against Dublin. It happened just five years ago, when Dublin wiped out the very same deficit in a Leinster semi-final at Croke Park on a Halloween night during the pandemic.
Kilkenny eventually won by a point that evening to reach the final and they held on for a narrow win this time too which also secured their final place, despite still having to play Wexford in the round robin next Sunday.
Another point that Lyng was keen to make after this eight goal barnburner was that we shouldn't be so down on the Leinster championship.
"It's there a long time," he said of such criticism. "It was there when I was playing as well. Leinster was always kind of the poor relation (to Munster). Look, I think today certainly showed it (Leinster's quality). Dublin and ourselves had six points coming in and I thought a lot of the hurling was top quality."
Dublin manager Niall Ó Ceallacháin argued that Dublin weren't actually that bad in the first-half, despite Kilkenny's 4-12 to 0-10 lead.
The goals were killer concessions with Adrian Mullen's, Kilkenny's first in the 16th minute, and Martin Keoghan's, in the 32nd minute, both the products of long deliveries to the danger area that broke kindly.
Ryan and TJ Reid also struck first-half goals though those two were more about two in-form players displaying their individual ability as they soloed in from either wing before netting.
Ryan finished with 2-3, all from play, and displayed a razor sharp edge whenever a scoring opportunity arose, like when Reid tossed him a pass in the 65th minute and he found space with a neat pirouette before pointing.
Reid finished with 1-9, the points all from frees, though before any of Kilkenny's eight different scorers could celebrate their day's work, they had to endure a horror final 20 minutes or so.
John Hetherton displayed the value of a big man on the edge of the square when he helped set up Dublin's first goal, finished off by Sean Currie, in the 39th minute.
Conor Donohoe came strongly into the game at midfield too, drilling back-to-back points.
But it wasn't until their second and third goals, scored in the 53rd and 54th minutes, by Currie again and Cian O'Sullivan, as part of a 2-4 scoring siege by Dublin, that a comeback seemed genuinely possible.
AJ Murphy, a star man in Na Fianna's All-Ireland club success under O Ceallachain last winter, came off the bench and scored two points, leaving it 4-19 to 3-20. But just as Dublin dared to dream, Ryan showed that all old ruthless Kilkenny streak with their fifth goal.
Dublin can secure a Leinster final rematch with Kilkenny on June 8 if they beat Galway in Round 5 next Sunday at Parnell Park.
O Ceallachain said Dublin aren't interested in moral victories and should have beaten Kilkenny this time but he looked to the positive ahead of the Galway game.
"As far as I can see, it's more or less a Leinster semi-final that we're playing next weekend," he said. "We've navigated the group to a point where we have a Leinster semi-final next week. That's the way we'll look at it and we'll look forward to that."
TJ Reid 1-9 (0-9 frees); B Ryan 2-3; M Keoghan 1-3; A Mullen 1-0; S Donnelly, K Doyle, J Molloy, L Hogan 0-1 each.
: S Currie 2-6 (1-4 frees, 0-1 65); C O'Sullivan 1-5; C Donohoe 0-4; A Jamieson-Murphy 0-2; D Power, R McBride, C Crummey, F Whitely 0-1 each.
: E Murphy; M Butler, H Lawlor, P Deegan; D Blanchfield, R Reid, M Carey; C Kenny, J Molloy; A Mullen, J Donnelly, B Ryan; M Keoghan, TJ Reid, S Donnelly.
Subs: K Doyle for Blanchfield (24-25, blood); L Hogan for Mullen (45); Doyle for Kenny (48); F Mackessy for Hogan (59); L Connellan for S Donnelly (71); T Walsh for Blanchfield (72).
: E Gibbons; C McHugh, P Smyth, J Bellew; P Doyle, C Crummey, P Dunleavy; C Burke, C Donohoe; C O'Sullivan, B Hayes, D Power; S Currie, J Hetherton, C Currie.
Subs: F Whitely for Dunleavy & R Hayes for C Currie (h/t); R McBride for Burke (49) A Jamieson-Murphy for Power (65).
: M Kennedy (Tipperary).
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