Shefflin pinpoints where Kilkenny fell short in Leinster U20 final defeat to Galway
Kilkenny were unable to defend their Leinster Under-20 title in Portlaoise on Wednesday night
Kilkenny came home empty-handed from Portlaoise in the Leinster Under-20 Hurling Final on Wednesday night as Henry Shefflin’s side fell to a 2-20 to 2-11 defeat against an impressive Galway outfit.
Even without the injured senior star Aaron Niland, the Tribesmen were much too good for the young Cats with Jack Shaughnessy and Vince Morgan netting in either half as the Tribesmen ran out nine point winners in the end. - MATCH SUMMARY HERE
After the match, team manager Henry Shefflin had no complaints.
“I'm disappointed for the lads, to be honest with you, because you've seen all the matches, we felt like we were getting a bit of momentum and growing a little bit. I thought they were improving as they went on and I don't think tonight was a reflection on that,” Shefflin told CRKC Sport after the match.
“Galway are a classy side and we saw that, you know, they've lovely hurlers and they set the terms in the way they went about the game and we just couldn't get to the pitch of them and we couldn't get on top of them,” the Kilkenny manager continued, expressing his disappointment at their inability to win the breaking ball.
“ I thought, the first 10 minutes of the second half we were afraid of their onslaught and we kind of held that at bay, but look, we were always going to be under pressure, we were finding it hard to get the scores and hard to get quality ball inside and had to make any ball stick, so for those reasons the terms were very much on Galway's,” he continued.