Paul Murphy explains where it all went wrong for Kilkenny
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As featured in the Kilkenny People newspaper
There are quite a few areas where it went wrong for Kilkenny last Sunday. When they went ahead early on in the game, you were thinking to yourself that if they could patch a bit of nice play together they could kick on, but the team never really put together a run of scores to rattle Dublin.
The Dubs were very calm in possession and they had a great structure. In contrast, Kilkenny’s play looked very cagey – they even looked a little nervous.
Kilkenny worked the ball well for one or two scores but they relied on the long ball a lot. They hit plenty of direct ball into TJ Reid and the full-forward line but Dublin were ready for that, with Brian Hayes playing very well as a sweeper.
Dublin, on the other hand, worked the ball very well to the likes of Donal Burke who assisted Cian O’Sullivan, Conal O’Riain and Ronan Hayes when he came on. They even got some great points close to the sideline.
You just have to say that Dublin were the better team and Kilkenny never really got to the pitch of it really. Especially after the penalty went in you really felt it was theirs for the taking and that’s how it transpired.
It just felt like Kilkenny were second best in all areas. Every time the ball broke, there was a Dublin player nearly throwing themselves at it – I’d say Kilkenny won very few of those battles.
David Blanchfield won a lot of ball in the first half but when you look around the field elsewhere, there were a lot of 50-50’s and breaks and rucks where a Dublin player seemed to always come out in possession of the sliotar.
Even the blocks and hooks got the Dublin crowd going and the team itself took a lot of energry from that. I suppose just in that entire area, it was Niall O’Ceallachain’s team that were dictating matters, with Kilkenny really struggling in that part of the game.
Kilkenny had their share of injuries throughout the year especially in the forwards as well as Mikey Carey in the backs at a stage of the season, so naturally you’d think back to the loss of Huw Lawlor and Billy Ryan but there was also a loss of form and a lack of confidence among the squad.
It always felt that Kilkenny were scrambling a bit this year as a result but at the start of the season you still have felt that the squad had enough in their disposal to have a really good year.
That didn’t happen though. Not getting out of Leinster wasn’t even on the radar for people so it’s disappointing all round.
You still would have loved to have Huw Lawlor and Billy Ryan involved. One is the best full-back in the country and the other is a dangerous scoring forward, but they weren’t there. That’s just life.
When you look at the squad now, there’s a few players that are now the wrong side of 30. When lads get to that stage, they’d ask themselves whether they want to go back in.
Naturally after a year like this you might expect a few retirements, so it will be a shock if we see the same squad as this year for the 2027 season. You can expect a bit of change over the winter, but that’s the natural progression of any team.
That will all be down to the players though. They’ll figure out if it is their time to step away.
On the back of the last few years, having won so many Leinster finals back to back, it is some change going from that to not even qualifying and it wasn’t expected by anybody.
After all of our success, it’s definitely a tough year with no cup in Leinster on the table for minor, under-20 or the seniors. It’s definitely a strange feeling by Kilkenny standards.
The county can now just go back and have a look to see what can be done, maybe if the structures in Kilkenny need to be changed, but it will all be looked at.
As a county we need to reflect on why things aren’t translating to senior level. Maybe it’s a case that it was just a very bad year and it’s a hard one to call, but across the board there will be quite a few questions asked in terms of what we need to do going forward.
The most important thing is to be honest with ourselves when we are doing all this. You can point out what we have done in the past and how we’ve a very strong club championship, but nevertheless there are areas where people would like to see improvement.
Derek Lyng even said it after the game that we need to be more successful at underage level. That’s a fair point, but I don’t think anyone will be able to provide the answer to any of these questions this week as it’s still very raw and everything will become more apparent in the months to come.
As a whole the Leinster Championship was an excellent product this year and it was really needed too as it had been flagging a little in recent years and became a bit predictable.
Whatever about the standard, the lack of competition in the province was a real talking point before this year. I don’t think it was doing any good for the counties involved in the championship either.
When you look at the final day last Sunday, it was Leinster that provided all of the drama with Munster having a couple of dead-rubbers when it came to qualification so it was a great finish to the championship as a whole.
Obviously we’d have loved to see Kilkenny come out the right side of the result in Parnell Park but, in hurling terms, there was a lot of excitement all the way to the full-time whistle. I think that will have a big impact on next year too as teams appreciate that every point is crucial and even Kilkenny’s result in drawing against Offaly, which ultimately cost them, is a testament to that.