Paul Murphy- Tough start but no panic stations just yet for Kilkenny

I think what people were looking for after the league game with Galway was a reaction. This was a real test for the Kilkenny team and unfortunately things didn’t go their way. Galway were five points up at half-time and it could have been worse really.

From the moment John Donnelly was sent off at the start of the second half, the performance level just dropped and the battles were lost in almost all the areas on the pitch.

The quality of ball going into the Galway forwards was top class, even if the Kilkenny full-back line did their level best to compete. In truth there was no player who really won their individual battle from the visitors point of view.

TJ Reid did his best in attack and a few lads worked hard but, man to man, Galway just had Kilkenny’s measure all the way through.

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The result has straight away put the team under a bit of pressure, especially with Wexford coming down the line this weekend.

Wexford invariably up their standards when they meet the Cats so you can expect them to bring a big performance to UPMC Nowlan Park. I saw a stat over the weekend that since 2018 Kilkenny have played Wexford and Galway a combined 13 times in the Leinster Championship round-robin and have only came away with three wins, so it’s an interesting point even if the team tends to get their house in order eventually.

The round-robin has proven to be difficult for Kilkenny over the years. I suppose the one good thing is that it’s a home game on Saturday, but Wexford won’t fear going to Nowlan Park either as they’ve performed well there in the past.

It’s the start nobody wanted to the round-robin stage. Kilkenny have their work cut out for them but they know what must be done. To be fair a big display against Wexford will dispel a lot of the fears that are carrying over from last week’s game.

When you’re winning it’s easy to support the team and everyone loves travelling, but the most important time to get behind them is when things aren’t really going their way – that’s the case at the moment.

No player deliberately intends to go out and put in poor performances, so the supporters need to rally around them – the team will come good again. Big numbers in black and amber in Nowlan Park on Saturday would mean a lot to the players.

The players would feed off that too as they’ll know that they didn’t do the jersey justice against Galway. They’ll feel that they owe it to the fans to put in a big performance, so by having a great crowd behind them it should be a big positive.

We need to come out in big numbers as it’s a huge game and one they need to win.

Players like to play as many games within reason so it’s good to see both Rory Garrett and Ed McDermott involved with the under-20s on Wednesday night.

Off the back of a loss all lads want to do is play another game as soon as possible and the fact that the two lads came on against Galway at the weekend rings even more true.

They weren’t starters so gametime will be great for them as well. The other side is if you are part of the senior panel and not getting minutes then there is the possibility that you will get ring-rusty so the lads hurling away means they don’t have much time to worry about last weekend – they can just play away at their own age.

I think it’s a good thing for the two lads, especially when it’s a competitive game against Galway. It will definitely stand to them.

The two of them have done well anytime they’ve appeared for the seniors, so keeping sharp is something that should benefit the players over the next few weeks.

As a whole it was a great start to the Leinster championship. Nobody really expected the Offaly and Dublin game to be such a close encounter, so you have to give great credit to Offaly as they really came out of the blocks fighting.

Wexford looked like they’d taken a few backwards steps in the last few years, but they’ve brought in a few of the younger lads into the panel. We’ve now seen Kildare stepping up as often teams are holding on by their fingernails when they move up from the Joe McDonagh Cup.

You need those teams to inject a bit of energy to it all. On top of that Dublin have Eoghan O’Donnell back into their fold and Donal Burke returning from injury so it does look a more balanced Leinster championship. While Galway do look out in front as the team to beat, there’s still a long way to go for Kilkenny to rediscover their form.

It was probably one of the more livelier starts to the round-robin since it began a number of years ago and that can only be a good thing. We all know how good the Munster championship is and the quality that it produces, so to have three good games is a big positive and a similar series of games this week could see the championship thrown wide open.

A lot of the sides are capable of beating each other, so a lot of the fixtures going forward are not foregone conclusions that they may have looked in advance of the start of the campaign. That’s precisely what you want to have – an exciting championship – so the next few weeks should be interesting.