Paul Murphy: Kilkenny impress but standard of opposition was pretty poor

Kilkenny hadn’t beaten Galway in the round-robin series until last Saturday and that’s over a few different years with a few different stories.

For Kilkenny they faced a poor Galway team but they weren’t to know that. For about 10 or 15 minutes at the start it looked like they would pose a serious threat - but then they just fell away.

Kilkenny can only play what’s put in front of them and we’ve already seen performances earlier this year where Kilkenny have only played well for the first half and their intensity dropped. I think Derek Lyng and the management team were out to ensure that didn’t happen and they were just the better team all round.

They lost a couple of lads to injury with Shane Murphy and Adrian Mullen being the most notable but the subs that came in including the likes of David Blanchfield showed there is a nice bit of depth and competition in the panel.

The lads were really tidy at the back as they completely shut down the Galway full-forward line, Conor Whelan in particular. so there’s lots of places to look at to say Kilkenny were impressive at the weekend and it sets them up nicely as they have a win under their belt against one of the better teams in Leinster.

Derek and the management will be pressing on the lads to not get complacent. Although they have beaten Galway, there will be other teams in the long grass out to topple them either away from home or inside in Nowlan Park.

They will be looking to build on this and continue the momentum going forward.

The conditions weren’t great for the game on Saturday and there were a number of mistakes made by both sides.

Kilkenny hit a couple of long balls which paid dividends with the first goal but at the same time they knew the Galway centre-back Gavin Lee was going to be sitting deep so they didn’t want to use that tactic to much either.

Kilkenny adjusted their style as a result and they carried the ball up the field really well and especially from the midfield and half-back areas as those lads were well able to carry the ball.

Jordan Molloy was outstanding in scoring three points from play in the first half. When you are getting that from one of your midfielders it shows that you are moving the ball into good scoring positions.

That type of play was missing when Kilkenny played Galway in the league earlier this year as they struck a lot of long ball that day. Galway were the ones who dominated up the middle as a result so they completely flipped that on its head this time round and looked the much sharper team.

Kilkenny were able to target Mossy Keoghan and Eoin Cody inside as well as carrying the ball through the lines and they just played the game the way it panned out.

That’s one thing that Kilkenny will be really happy about, especially as they look ahead to Corrigan Park and facing Antrim this weekend.

I think everybody expected to see a Galway that was more in line with game two, three and four of the league as they tried out a lot of players.

The attitude more than anything was the most surprising thing because every team wants to have a bit of fight in them. If things don’t work out, you’ll make peace with that as long as there is fight and determination but there was none of that from Galway.

I don’t think anybody predicted that and we saw during the game that Michael Donoghue brought on Conor Cooney and Daithi Burke and lads like that, kind of the old guard.

Galway are now visiting Offaly in their next game and I think you’ll see more of the old guard which is maybe not what Michael Donoghue wants to do. I think he wants to blood these new lads and see them grab the jersey for themselves but he may be forced now to go back to the likes of Conor Cooney and Daithi Burke and get a bit more experience on the field.

First and foremost Derek Lyng and Kilkenny will have been happy to come away from Nowlan Park last weekend and while Galway didn’t test them the way they might have liked to be tested they’ll be hoping they get that over the rest of the games.

Dublin could prove to be quite tricky and Wexford always play well against Kilkenny - they look to be building a small bit of momentum themselves and they do have big games to come.

Corrigan Park has also been a difficult place to go in recent years so in the next few games, Derek Lyng will look at them on their own merits and think what he can take from them individually.

By the time the final game against Wexford comes around, Kilkenny will hope to have one foot in a Leinster final for a start and at that stage they’d be looking forward to playing a team like Wexford as you don’t want to go through the entire Leinster championship not being tested.

That’s the way Derek and Kilkenny will view it and by the time they get through the next few games he will know a lot more about the team and they’ll be tested a lot more.