KILKENNY NOW FEAR playing Galway according to the All-Ireland champions’ captain David Burke.
Brian Cody’s side may have won four of the last five meetings between the sides, but most recently Galway outclassed the 36-time Liam MacCarthy winners in an eight-point waltz to victory at Pearse Stadium.
Kilkenny only scored two points from play that day, and as Galway seek back-to-back Leinster titles for the first time in their history, confidence is soaring out west.
The sides face off in the final for the third time in four years in Croke Park this Sunday (4pm), but Galway have only beaten Kilkenny in one Leinster final: their first win in the province, back in 2012.
And the St Thomas’s midfielder thinks Galway’s unbroken recent run of nine championship games unbeaten has cultivated a fear in the opposition.
“I think they [Kilkenny] were a monkey on the back for every team in the country. I think they drove everyone in the country mad really for a while – they were kind of this unbeatable team,” said Burke (28), who is in his second season as Galway captain.
“But I think we changed that in ’12 and made them look like their good team was coming to a bit of an end.
“They still fear us in a way, I think anyway. They still fear playing Galway. Obviously, we played them since … we’ve pushed them a lot along the way. A lot of their motivation was probably to try and stop us, really. If you look at it from that point of view, you can take a lot of positives out of it.”
While Galway’s unbeaten championship run continues, they did lose to Limerick and Wexford in this year’s national league. Without a Walsh Cup to wind up his team’s preparation, it was inevitable that Donoghue’s Galway would struggle to hit the heights of 2017 in the spring.
But despite those losses Burke says the side have been filled with confidence after their victories to date in the championship, and that having Liam MacCarthy in the county has also added a layer of armour to their self belief.
“It gives you more confidence. It gives all the players more confidence, definitely. You can see lads are playing probably better than they were last year – some players, and some players aren’t.
“You’ll have that all the time. There’s pressures on players, no matter what. There’s pressure on a team, it doesn’t matter if they’re All-Ireland champions or the worst team in it. There’s pressure on them to deliver, and that comes from within the county itself.
“Look, we’re a hurling stronghold so there’s going to be pressure all the time. So we just have to believe that we’re good enough to be at the top table all the time.”
Despite being crowned league champions with victory over Tipperary, Kilkenny are still being regarded as a team in transition. Cody has introduced new faces in the last two seasons and he will be delighted with the impact of his recent U21 graduates. Burke, too, has been impressed with Kilkenny’s next generation, and warned against expecting another facile victory.
“Look, to be honest, everyone was kind of writing Kilkenny off last year, because they’d young lads coming through. But I knew those lads very well and I was saying they’re very good hurlers and when they get going they’ll be a serious team – and they are a serious team now.
“They’ve won the league against the odds, and only for a blip or two in the championship and everyone is hammering them. So, look, they’ll have their homework done, they’ll have time to recover, so I think they’ll be a different, formidable opposition again the next day. So we just have to be ready for that.
“I think we were always able to beat them on a given day. I think it’s just belief and mindset really, to be honest.
“That’s what probably (made the difference), they had greater belief and mindset over any other team. I think that’s what they’ve instilled into themselves, more than skill or anything itself. They’ve massive belief in winning games and getting over the line.
“I think it comes down to the last 10-15 minutes; I think it will come down to that again the next day against them.
“It’s a Leinster final, there’s a trophy on offer and we’re looking to win it, simple as that.”
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