THE QUESTION IS asked almost as an afterthought, but it was nonetheless revealing. When Kilkenny manager Derek Lyng eventually caught up with his former team mate Henry Shefflin, what would they have to say to each other after that?
‘That’ being one of the greatest ways you could ever win a game but certainly one of the worst you could lose. Shefflin, well, he had to be feeling a sickness that sits like a stone in your stomach. Enough to put him off doing media interviews, anyway.
“Not a whole lot you can say,” said Lyng of their meeting.
“I mean, if I was on the end of that… Look, you are sick, you are totally deflated. So that was it. We will probably cross paths again.
“It’s relief for us. We are on the right side of it and it is a fantastic feeling. I wouldn’t like to be on the other side of it either.”
In his first piece of silverware as Kilkenny manager, he is not pushing any boundaries. He is merely maintaining equilibrium. It cannot be an easy thing. Elation might be very fleeting. Relief as a success might be as good as it gets.
“Ah look, I think relief is the right word. I’m just really happy for the group that; I think maybe at the end….ok, you get the win – I thought we deserved something out of the game,” he said.
“I thought it would have been hard luck to lose it. I’m just thrilled for the group that they kept fighting and going to the end.
“We kept fighting and kept picking off a few scores and won a few frees, and that was important at that stage. At the end you could say it would have been easy for Galway to close out the game, the ball was in the corner for maybe 30 seconds and I think John Donnelly got the flick across and it’s just….how many teams would give up there?
“We kept going and we got the ball across and fair play to Cillian, he took it on and took responsibility and that’s what we’ve been saying to the players all year.”
The message is important. As big as Buckley’s goal was, in the greater scheme of things, it was no bigger than another man slotting home his first championship goal in Mikey Butler. Nobody came to Croke Park in hope of that. It landed like an unexpected gift.
“Mikey came up and got a goal and that’s we’ve been saying to lads all year, just drive on and have the confidence to go for it and thankfully today it worked in our favour,” said Lyng.
Kilkenny now head into the All-Ireland semi-final against whoever comes out of the meeting of Clare, against the winners of Carlow and Dublin.
They brought a couple of injury concerns into the weekend. Mikey Carey was named to start his first game since the All-Ireland final last year but never got to take his place. Martin Keoghan got an early goal before injury forced his withdrawal. Adrian Mullen is still out.
But they have time.
“It’s hard to know with Mossy (Keoghan) said Lyng.
“Mossy was moving well coming into the week, we didn’t think we were taking a chance, but he felt it. He felt it after about 20 minutes and we took him off.
“Four weeks does give us a bit of time to get some of those lads back. Adrian I think will have a chance, Richie Reid will have a chance as well. So it gives them all a fighting chance now which is great.
“Mikey (Carey) unfortunately wasn’t feeling well on Friday night. He’ll have to be assessed. But I would hope so. We just need to find out a little bit more on that.”
So, enough of the bean-counting. Tell us about the dressing room and the madness in that space.
“As you can imagine,” he grinned, “there’s a great buzz in there and I suppose all through the year, I think we’ve been pretty decent.
“We got to the league final, albeit we were very disappointed with the display that day, and the last day against Wexford we were disappointed.
“Other than that, I think we’ve been pretty consistent and I think today, to win will drive us on even more. I still think we’re improving. We talk about the panel a lot all year and that was really important today.”
As for the manner of the win, well he’s an optimistic sort.
“I still had hope and I just felt we were going to get another chance. When the ball is played across, we knew if it was saved it’s game over.
“Thankfully we’re on the right side of it today and we had that little bit of luck at the end, but I think overall we deserved it.”
