KILKENNY KNOW THEY have bigger mountains to summit, but the nature of their second-half overpowering of Dublin pleased Brian Cody yesterday.

The Cats bounced back from their agonising one-point defeat to Galway in Salthill, taking out their anger on the home team and gaining real momentum with a ruthless display. At half-time the Cats were just three ahead. They won the second period by 2-14 to 0-6.

Westmeath’s shock draw with Wexford last night leaves Kilkenny in pole position to qualify for the Leinster final. If they can avoid defeat in Nowlan Park against Darragh Egan’s side next weekend, they’ll move into the provincial decider.

“To be honest about it, we’re looking upon things as we’re going to Nowlan Park fighting to stay in the championship because that’s what we want to do,” said Cody.

“Regardless, we know the threat, we know the challenge they bring to us. It’s going to be just a massive battle.”

Cody was satisfied with how they responded to the Galway defeat.

“It was disappointing but at the end of the day we’re playing a round robin. All you can do in a round robin is just park the game that’s just been played and get on and prepare for the next game. I suppose the fact that we had two weeks was a help as well.

“It is important. I suppose we kind of played at a way we’d like to be playing every day we go out, starting with the work rate which was of a very high order and is the starting point and has to be for every game.

“Tonight was good. But again, we can’t get carried away thinking we’re sorted now because you’re never sorted. The next challenge is just around the corner.

“Tonight’s game is over, we have to look ahead and we’re playing Wexford next weekend. It matters massively. Last time out we were beaten by a point – tonight we’re going home feeling much better about things.

“The turnaround time is very, very short. It’s on next Saturday, it’s going to take a few days to get that game out of our systems and we’ll go again.”
The tweaks Cody made since the previous round worked wonders. Adrian Mullen excelled at midfield alongside Alan Murphy, while the introduction of Cian Kenny and Martin Keoghan to the attack produced 2-5.

“Very, very happy with the two of them,” he said of his centre-field partnership. “I mean the two of them are excellent hurlers, probably would be considered more natural forward players. But they have a real appetite for work, a real genuine sense of how to play hurling. They were, yeah, they were top class.”

Most concerning for their rivals, TJ Reid looked to be moving more freely and helped himself 1-7. He was withdrawn at half-time against Galway due to a groin issue, which has cleared up according to his manager.

“He’s good from an injury point of view. But at the same time the body has gone through a lot of hurling. Tonight he played really, really well to be fair to him.

For Dublin, the issues are far more pressing. They must survey the wreckage and recover in time for next weekend’s trip to Pearse Stadium.

“No, the first-half was really competitive and a good game but I think the goals kind of really killed us. They got a softish goal in the first-half and then in the second-half that second goal gave them that six or seven-point cushion and they drove on from that.

“Then they scored the third goal. The goals kind of buried us. They finished off them with a good few points.

“We have to look at that now and address it and pick it up for next week.”
Unbeaten coming into yesterday’s game, Dublin now most likely need a result to make the provincial final, although they are still favourites to qualify in the top three.

“We’re proud hurling people, they’re a proud team,” said Mattie Kenny. “Playing on their home pitch, they wanted to put up a better performance tonight. Of course the lads are going to be disappointed.

“But the games are coming thick and fast, we’re out again next weekend so we’ll have to dust ourselves down. We have a number of things we need to address. We’ll get back in training again this week and dust ourselves down and go again.

“There’s four teams left in it now. Some teams are trying to qualify for the Leinster final, some teams are trying to qualify to stay in the competition. It’s all going down to the last day again.”