A performance like that was coming: Lyng

For Kilkenny manager Derek Lyng, you couldn’t have asked much more than what his team achieved last Saturday night.

The team claimed more Leinster honours and for the Emeralds man it was the start that did the job for them.

“We got a good start and worked our way into the game pretty quickly,” he said. “We took over most of the pitch and won a lot of the battles, took our scores then when we had the opportunities. We were ready for it today.

“Look, going back to the game we had about three weeks ago, it was a lot tougher. It was in Parnell Park. We had a couple of weeks’ preparation now for this one.

“In fairness to Dublin, you have days like that as well and I think they are better than that. But I’m very happy with the way we performed.

“The reality of it is I think we have probably been disappointed with some aspects of our performance in the last few weeks.

“We definitely improved in Parnell Park and the game against Wexford brought us on again, but we’ve been training really well during that time, we probably have been a little bit frustrated with ourselves in terms of what we brought to some of the games so I think today was a performance that has been coming. But at the same time, in four weeks it will be a different story and we need to keep improving.”

The victory saw Kilkenny claim a fifth Leinster championship on the trot for their fourth time in their history, and while an All-Ireland title is the ultimate aim, provincial honours still matters to the players involved.

Since drawing with Carlow, the Kilkenny performance levels have improved and Lyng is happy with the upturn in form.

“The Leinster championship has been very competitive,” he said. “People expect results and people expect different teams to win all the time and it doesn’t work like that at all.

“If you’re ever involved in it you know a lot of hard work has to go into that and you still have to perform when it comes to it.

“We haven’t been at our best but I always felt there was serious character there. I thought the way we saw out the last few minutes in Parnell Park and Nowlan Park was kind of a testament to the players that we have.

“Granted it wasn’t fluid hurling for the 70 minutes, but that’s the game. No team is going to let you dominate for 70 minutes.

When it’s not going your way you just have to dig in and see that out for maybe 10 or 15 minutes and take your chances then when they come.

“Today was really good. And we’re happy with how we’ve finished the Leinster campaign now,” the Kilkenny boss continued.

One of the big positives for Kilkenny and Lyng was the return of Adrian Mullen with the Shamrocks star excelling in attack.

“He is after working tremendously hard to get back from injury. The quad can be a difficult injury to come back from.

“He was really diligent and went about it the right way and, look, he is an outstanding player.”

Attention now switches to an All-Ireland semi-final and Lyng thinks there’s still more to come from his side.

“We’ll take a few days off and enjoy this and we’ll have a look at it and plan it out from there.

“We’ve a lot of hard work to do. We’ll enjoy that, we’ll enjoy training, we’ll enjoy coming together as a group and we need to challenge each other more and there’s competition there now so really looking forward to it now.”