Kilkenny win their 36th All-Ireland title

With an appearance not unlike Vladimir Putin’s – except taller and with a steelier and more scary stare – he’s become the sport’s most successful manager of all time, ruling his players with military discipline.

The Cats shot just two wides and restricted Galway’s forward line to just one point from play throughout the half.

Seconds later Cyril Donnellan was given his marching orders for a striking offence and with 12 minutes remaining it was more or less game over. So Shane Prendergast comes in, plays his first All-Ireland final, and does a great job. Nowlan Park behind closed doors becomes a haven for the likes of Buckley in the build-up to finals. Well, the bookmakers don’t think so as they price Kieran Joyce at 33-1 to win the man of the match award. The national games, hurling and Gaelic football, are reaching their climax and the All-Ireland finals are upon us. “Calling someone a footballer is the worst thing you could say to a Kilkenny man”, a local woman tells me, disgust etched on her face.

But the reason you can’t have a player like Burke following Hogan all over the field is that it will leave a mountain of space for TJ Reid to exploit on the edge of the Galway square.

The last three All-Ireland Hurling Championship finals have ended in a draw, forcing a replay; don’t be shocked if that trend continues, as Sunday’s match is shaping up to be a cracking final.

A trip through Kilkenny, a county still defined by its heritage as a Norman stronghold, will tell you why they’ve won more finals than anyone else.

However, Buckley believes that there’s more than enough in terms of leadership within the current panel to cover all those losses.

“We have had a tough year with injuries there’s no doubt about that”, Cody said. Still, they found a way to secure the biggest prize in hurling against a Galway side that frankly failed to make any impact in the second half.

“They have a serious scoring threat”.

Callanan was superb between the sticks for Galway in their All-Ireland semi-final victory over Tipperary. We would never have considered at all that we were going to dominate this game.

One of the common themes of Kilkenny’s games so far this season has been that teams have been able to stay with Kilkenny up to a point, but when push comes to shove, the Cats pulled away and finished off opponents inside the closing 10 minutes. Galway came out looking energized, and were it not for TJ Reid’s goal for Kilkenny in the 13th minute might have seen their lead grow more than it did. Kilkenny ran out seven point winners in the end thanks to a late flurry of points from Eoin Larkin and T.J. Reid.

The Galway sideline may well have decided that Callanan was unmarkable in the semi-final and therefore left Mannion to do his best to deal with the Drom-Inch destroyer but another reading of that situation was that they don’t have total faith in John Hanbury to handle a marquee full forward.

Trailing by three points at half-time, Kilkenny levelled it up in the 43rd minute when TJ Reid posted a 65.

“The odd evening I have off from training with Kilkenny, it’s nothing too strenuous but I might go into the gym and take my mind off things”.

“There comes a point in a match when it’s do or die”. By the 47th minute Kilkenny had pushed themselves back into the lead and Galway were shipping water as Brian Coady’s men kept piling on the punishment after every Galway mistake.