Kilkenny duo happy with more Leinster success

Just like last December, when O’Loughlin Gaels beat Na Fianna, Paddy Deegan was part of a Kilkenny side that overcame a Dublin opponent in a Leinster decider at Croke Park.

While the club victory last December went to the wire, this was a lot more comfortable on the scoreboard.

“The scoreline was made comfortable by the workrate and effort of the players and even in the preparation for the game,” the captain said.

“The focus was right coming into the game. We were maybe written off a slight bit as everyone was talking about Dublin coming into the game and it maybe put a bit of a chip on our shoulder and it gave us a bit of an edge there today,” Deegan added.

Despite 16 points separating the teams come the end, the primary school teacher knew his side couldn’t take anything for granted over the course of the game.

“We were happy going in at half-time but we knew the job wasn’t done as it was only two or three years ago that we were here against Dublin as well and in a similar position but in the end we only won the game by a point with Huw Lawlor getting a late score,” he recalled.

“We knew we weren’t going to walk the second half and it was important to apply ourselves again.”

The versatile Deegan acknowledges that they have put in a lot of hard training in recent months to get to this stage.

“It’s not even the work we’ve done in the last two weeks, but it’s what we’ve done over the last six or seven months and it’s standing to us now,” he said.

“I know we were in a couple of tight games throughout the year but that’s the way the Leinster Championship is and it’s probably not given the credit for that.

“It’s a massive honour for myself, my family, O’Loughlins and Kilkenny to accept the cup. I’m very grateful to the club for giving me the opportunity to stand up there with the lads.”

For TJ Reid, it’s a lucky 13th winning Leinster medal and he felt this type of display was coming.

“Our attitude and focus has been top class the last few weeks as we were building towards the Leinster final,” he said. “We knew that performance was in us because we had been touching on it in the last few games.

“We’ve been hurling well at times in games and then closed up shop but today we hurled for the 70 minutes and we hurled very well.”

The Shamrocks supremo felt the attacking display in which they scored 3-25 from play was their best thus far after a couple of patchy performances.

“We’ve been working on our shooting efficiency as well as playing the ball to the man in the best position,” he said. “In other games we maybe didn’t take the best option and were shooting out of position but the last few weeks we’ve working on things and we were finding our players a bit easier by playing hurling with our heads up.

“This Kilkenny team has fantastic hurlers. They are all stick men and are all well able to hurl, so once you put it into practice and put in the performance it’s great.”

Reid’s 2-6 tally moved him back to the top of the all-time championship scoring list ahead of Cork’s Patrick Horgan but he felt we was helped by a strong team effort with big impact all over the field.

“The goals were soft enough in my regard but you still have to be there to score them and I think today (Saturday) was just all about us.

“For the first time this year we had a full complement of players available to us.

“We’ve been competing without four or five lads for a lot of the championship campaign and that does weaken the panel.

“Today though we’d a strong bench and lads fighting for a jersey and the way we play we are able to find space well in a place like Croke Park and we did that well,” he finished.