Attitude and spirit pleases Kilkenny manager Derek Lyng ahead of Wexford clash

For a minute it looked like Kilkenny were about to let a 16 point lead slip last weekend and all that went with that but the Cats showed their character to pull through and Derek Lyng knew they’d face a very difficult challenge against an ever improving Dublin outfit.

“I knew myself it was going to be a battle so when you go 16 up you do expect to win the game.

“You should be seeing it out and we just about did it.

“We switched off for a while and probably lost our shape a bit when we made the changes, and you know we had to make those changes, we got a couple of bangs.

CATCH-UP: Kilkenny U20 Special - Ivan Bolger, Rory Glynn, Stephen Manogue and more

“Then the momentum was with Dublin and we struggled to wrestle that back, and they’re a quality team and they've shown that this year so far.”

The third quarter of the contest was when Dublin really piled the pressure on the Cats as they scored three goals on the way to reducing the deficit to two points but the home side showed their character as they hit back against the blue tide.

“We would be very disappointed in the purple patch Dublin got and the run they got went on a lot longer than we would have hoped for, but to be fair to the lads they dug in, we got the goal, we worked a couple of scores and got over the line.

“It was a strong breeze there which probably looking on you mightn't realise it but it played it’s part too”, the Kilkenny manager said.

A question from the assembled media afterwards about Kilkenny teams from the past maybe proving more ruthless in the way they put games to bed ignited a defence of the current crop by Lyng.

“We’re comparing all the time, to the past teams, and we have to stop doing that," said Lyng.

“We have a team here that’s competing really well and competing hard. We got the two points. Are we happy that somebody else got back ino the game?

“We’re not at all but at the same time, I think there's probably a narrative that we're going to be the team that was there 10 or 15 years ago, whatever it was. That’s not the case.

“This is Kilkenny of 2025. These lads are working really hard. We have a lot of injuries. We've got lads coming back.
“We’re balancing all of that and the attitude and the spirit in there is really good.

“This gives us something to keep working at and for sure we’ll do that.”

The Leinster v Munster Championship talk also came up with the Kilkenny manager eager to acknowledge that the GAA is not doing enough to promote hurling around the country with the game sandwiched between two games live on RTE.

“Maybe if this was a Munster championship game, we’d be talking about it. It was a fantastic game,” Lyng said of their 5-19 to 3-21 victory over the Dubs.

I think today showed the quality that’s there. Dublin and ourselves had six points coming in. And I thought a lot of the hurling was top quality.”

“But we’re talking a lot about promoting the game at the minute, and there's a lot of work going into it. We’re definitely not helping our cause by having three games crossing over.

“One of them should have been yesterday (Saturday) evening or something with television. Again, we want to promote the game. We should have access. Every hurling supporter should have access to all these games.

“And everybody interested in hurling would have an interest in today’s game and the two games in Munster. So it’s just a little bit of joined-up thinking. That would be a good starting point.”