Relentless Dublin dump Cats out of Championship
Dublin supporters during the Leinster GAA Senior Hurling Championship Round 5 match between Dublin and Kilkenny at Parnell Park. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile
The Westmeath team that won the Leinster football final had a picture of a wolf pack on their dressing-room wall in Croke Park. The power of the pack and all that shtick.
We didn't get a peek inside Dublin's dressing-room at Parnell Park but if they had a giant picture of Andy Comerford on the wall, it wouldn't have been a surprise.
The former Kilkenny captain suggested last week that Dublin are 'no great shakes', and not as classy as the 2013 version, which went on to claim their last Leinster title.
As far as motivational gifts go, that one came wrapped with a bow.
Niall Ó Ceallacháin's crew certainly gave a very good impression of a classy outfit and a team that knows exactly what it is doing, switching from silk to steel as the occasion demanded and running Kilkenny into the ground with a relentless effort, dumping the Cats out of the Championship.
Derek Lyng said afterwards that he suspected it was going to be 'a tough year' due to the various withdrawals and injuries that afflicted the camp. Huw Lawlor and Billy Ryan didn't commit for 2026, Tommy Walsh never got back from injury, Harry Shine and Adrian Mullen are only just back and Jordan Molloy suffered a season-ending injury.
Not that a Dublin side inspired by Donal Burke, Brian Hayes and John Hetherton will be overly concerned by Kilkenny's problems having scored a first Championship win on capital soil over the stripey men in 85 years.
The message from Ó Ceallacháin half an hour or so after the landmark win was that it's what they do next that's most important. Dublin will play Galway in the Leinster final at Croke Park on June 6.
"I'm really proud of them but it's on to a fortnight's time now and the Leinster final. What's important for us all is we've won absolutely nothing. What I would say is that there's no point doing this and heading up in a fortnight's time to Croke Park and not being on the right side of that result."
As rare as beating Kilkenny was, doing so a week after dismantling Galway was even more of an achievement.
"We played Galway last weekend but they'll be two different games," said Ó Ceallacháin, looking forward to the Leinster final. "Conditions are very, very different between Salthill and what it will be like in Croker.
"So it will be a very, very different game and all I would say is there's no point in us having a landmark win like that against a team we have beaten once in 60 or 70 years and then not showing up, or not being at the pitch of it to win that game, in two weeks."
That's the first thing Ó Ceallacháin was wrong about all afternoon because even if they do lose to Galway, Dublin are making serious progress. In 18 months or so under the new management, they've beaten Limerick, Kilkenny and Galway in white-hot Championship encounters.
It may not be the Kilkenny of old, that Lyng was involved with, or the Kilkenny side of Comerford et all, but they still take some beating and the visitors were 0-7 to 0-6 up after the first quarter.
TJ Reid - will we see him again? - had three points mined at that stage and Eoin Cody and Martin Keoghan buzzed with attacking intent.
Then Dublin took over, back-to-back points from defender John Bellew putting them into a lead that held for the remainder of the game.
Dublin were without talisman duo Eoghan O'Donnell and Liam Rushe in defence - Rushe suffered an injury in the warm up - but still defended adroitly as a unit, ensuring Kilkenny didn't score a single goal.
And with Brian Hayes so dynamic and impactful at midfield, and Hetherton tormenting Mikey Carey close to Kilkenny's goal under the aerial ball, Dublin looked like a side with a plan and, crucially, the players to execute it.
Even with 11 first half wides, Dublin still led 0-15 to 0-11.
Kilkenny had the breeze for the second half and it was significant but not the sort to turn a game on its own.
The six-in-a-row champions needed to bring something special to capitalise on it and did get it going for a while, chopping the deficit down to a point, 0-17 to 0-18.
Then Dublin upped it again, reeling off 1-3, each score a contender for The Sunday Game's highlights reel. Ronan Hayes, who won the 51st minute penalty that Burke converted, pointed a beauty from beneath the main stand on the left wing. So did Conal Ó Riain.
Hayes scored 0-2 as a sub but Kilkenny got no punch from their bench, despite bringing on four forwards. Another reason they came up shy.
"I probably had an idea it was going to be a tough year, if I'm honest," said Kilkenny manager Lyng, citing player withdrawals and injuries.
"It's what we do now, it's what the group does now. What we do in terms of our structures and everything else, we have to look at all of that. Because we haven't been producing winning teams at an underage level for a while now.
"You're trying to be part of the solution and it's never easy. But I have no doubt there's a lot of people in Kilkenny who are putting their shoulders to the wheel to make sure that we're going to come back stronger. And we will come back stronger, I've said that and I believe that. We will win All-Irelands again. Unfortunately it's not going to be this year."
D Burke (1-11, 6 frees, 1-0 pen, 2 65s); J Hetherton, C Ó Riain (0-3 each); J Bellew, C O'Sullivan, R Hayes (0-2 each); C Donohoe, B Hayes, D Ó Dúlaing (0-1 each).
TJ Reid (0-7, 4 frees, 1 65); E Cody (0-5); C Kenny (0-4); K Doyle, T Phelan (0-2 each); M Keoghan, D Blanchfield (0-1 each).
E Gibbons; P Doyle, P Smyth, C McHugh; C Crummey, J Bellew, C Burke; B Hayes, C Donohoe; F Whitely, D Burke, C O'Sullivan; David Purcell, J Hetherton, C Ó Riain.
R Hayes for Purcell (40); D Power for Donohoe (50); D Ó Dúlaing for O'Sullivan (51); P Dunleavy for C Burke (55-56); C Groarke for Whitely (70); Dunleavy for Crummey (73).
E Murphy; I Bolger, M Carey, M Butler; D Blanchfield, D Corcoran, P Deegan; K Doyle, C Kenny; L Moore, H Shine, T Phelan; M Keoghan, TJ Reid, E Cody.
J Donnelly for Moore (32); A Mullen for Shine (50); R Reid for Bolger (51); T Clifford for Doyle (54); S Donnelly for Keoghan (65).
T Walsh (Waterford).
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