Galway 0-35; Kilkenny 0-17
Not too many teams get the honor of beating a Kilkenny hurling team by 18-points - that sort of humiliation was something normally reserved for their football teams when the Cats used to enter the National football league and the Leinster championship.
On the night, the young Galway outfit totally outclassed Derek Lyng’s team with a display of point taking that was almost unerring over the 70 minutes plus added time.
Lyng has been trying out players in this league campaign to see if he can strengthen his overall squad which has not won an All Ireland for a decade under both Brian Cody and himself. With the likes of Huw Lawlor away travelling and others taking time out, it appears the talent vein in the Marble city and thereabouts is nothing like it was a few decades ago.
Still the truth of where both of these teams stand in the world of hurling will be gauged better in six weeks time when they go head to head again in the same Salthill venue of Pearse Stadium for the opening round of the Leinster championship.
Little Aaron Niland led the onslaught for the host with 0-13 in front of an enthusiastic crowd of almost 5,500. Even when opting to play against the elements in the first half, the Tribesmen were still first to most balls and led by six points at the break - 0-5 to 0-9.
They hit fifth gear on the resumption and landed 20 scores, all points - a scoring mark that many teams would be happy with over two halves and not just one.
Galway, having opted to play against the breeze, got on top in most positions and led by 0-15 to 0-9 at the end of the opening half with Aaron Niland leading the way by himself equalling Kilkenny’s tally in the first half and 0-13 in total.
Afterwards Cats Manager Lyng didn’t mince his words on what had unfolded in front of his eyes. "Unacceptable," he declared.
He went on: “From the get-go, we were just flat. It's not good enough. And we're very disappointed. We have to be honest with ourselves. That was unacceptable. Everybody in there knows that. From start to finish, I didn't think we had enough energy at all. We were way too passive. Lookit, I'm responsible for that and it wasn't good enough.
“We have a lot of work to do and we have to get going. We can't do anything about it but we have to learn from it fairly fast. We had a few lads sick the last couple of weeks. It's going through the camp a little bit. That's not an excuse at all. Everybody that was out there today was fit. That's not why I'm saying it.
“We have a few lads who have long-term injuries that are coming back. Whether they'll be back for the last match of the league, I don't know. But I’m hoping they’ll be back in action in the next three or four weeks.
“We were flat, which is completely unlike us. We have to credit the opposition, they were very good, they were fresh. They were hungrier and that's the most important thing. Hunger is everything in sport and they won every breaking ball. That's within our control and we'll be very disappointed with that.”
His counterpart, Galway manager Micheál Donoghue was understandably happy with his side’s showing. “Yeah, it was okay,” he said, somewhat understatedly, adding: “After the last two games, we were looking to get a more consistent performance . Today we got a bit more consistent but I still think there's more in us. In the two previous games, our efficiency let us down. So a combination of both of them gave us a better performance today. Our approach for this year was to use as many players and give them as much experience as we can. Look, it's gone okay for us. But we'll stay humble and stay working and look forward to the next round,” he stressed.
Galway: D Fahy; C Trayers, J Ryan, K Hanrahan; R Glennon (0-1), P Mannion (0-1), D Morrissey; C Daniels, T Killeen (0-1); D Neary, C Mannion (0-6), R Burke (0-4, 0-1 s/l); T Monaghan (0-2), Conor Whelan (0-2), Aaron Niland (0-13, 0-9f, 0-1'65) Subs: J Rabbitte (0-1) for Monaghan (53), C Cooney (0-1) for Neary (53), TJ Brennan (0-1) for Morrissey (58), E Niland (0-1) for Burke (62), O Lohan (0-1) (Skehana-Mountbellew/Moylough) for A Niland (63).
Kilkenny: A Tallis; R Garrett, M Carey, I Bolger; D Blanchfield, D Corcoran, Py Deegan; C Kenny (0-10, 0-4f), J Molloy (0-1); L Moore (0-2), E Cody (0-2), L Connellan; N Shortall, M Keoghan, T Phelan (0-1) Subs: J Donnelly (0-1) for Connellan (29), I Byrne for Moore (34-36), K Doyle for Shortall (36), R Reid for Deegan (45), S Murphy for Carey (48), B for Molloy (53).
Ref: C Lyons (Cork).
GAA RESULTS
HL Division 1A
Galway 0-35 Kilkenny 0-17
Limerick 3-19 Cork 0-20
Waterford v Tipperary
(Postponed)
HL Division 1B
Dublin 6-32 Down 0-18
Kildare 3-22 Carlow 1-19
Clare 0-26 Wexford 1-20
HL Division 2
Kerry 6-24 Mayo 0-15
Laois 0-28 Meath 0-11
Westmeath 1-20 Derry 3-13
HL Division 3
Tyrone 3-22 Armagh 0-11
Wicklow 0-21 Donegal 0-14
Roscommon 5-18 Fermanagh 2-22
HL Division 4
Leitrim 2-28 Lancashire 0-15
Warwickshire 0-16 Longford 1-13
Sligo 8-19 Cavan 0-11
Camogie League Division 1A
Waterford 1-16 Antrim 0-9
Galway 1-13 Tipperary 0-12
Cork 1-15 Kilkenny 0-9
Camogie League Division 2A
Meath 2-12 Derry 1-11
Kerry 0-10 Westmeath 0-8
Laois 2-11 Carlow 2-9
Camogie League Division 3A
Armagh 4-11 Tyrone 2-10
Roscommon 3-15 Wicklow 0-6
Camogie League Division 3B
Mayo 1-13 Monaghan 0-7
Louth 6-1 Donegal 0-7
