Dublin fall short to Kilkenny in Leinster decider
By Daire Walsh
It proved to be a disappointing Saturday evening in Croke Park for Dublin as Kilkenny stormed to a 73rd Leinster Senior Hurling Championship crown with a convincing 1-25 to 0-19 triumph over the capital side.
While the Sky Blues did their utmost to remain in contention, Brian Cody’s Cats had too much in the tank and now progress to the last-four of the Liam McCarthy Cup.
For Dublin, they will have a shot at redemption in a forthcoming All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship quarter-final.
There was plenty of local interest in this game, with Liam Rushe (formerly of St Patrick’s, Palmerstown), James Madden (Ballyboden St Enda’s), Chris Crummey (Lucan Sarsfields) and Danny Sutcliffe (St Jude’s) all handed starts by Dublin manager Mattie Kenny.
Crummey was later joined on the field by his brother Paul and Thomas Davis’ David Keogh also got a run-out in the closing moments.
The Blues’ pre-game preparations were badly disrupted, with four players from their match day squad of 26 being ruled out for Covid-related reasons.
This saw Cian O’Callaghan and Ronan Hayes dropping out of the starting line-up, with the latter’s Kilmacud Crokes team-mates, Oisin O’Rorke and Fergal Whitely, unable to take their places amongst the Dublin substitutes.
Key defender Eoghan O’Donnell was also withdrawn through injury three minutes into the action and with the Cats rattling off four unanswered points, the early signs were ominous for Dublin.
Nevertheless, they stuck to their task, with Sutcliffe and Crummey registering a brace of points to bring the Metropolitans on level terms approaching the interval.
However, Kilkenny responded with three scores on the bounce to lead 0-12 to 0-9 heading into the second period.
Outside of their two-game series in 2013 – where Dublin triumphed in a Leinster SFC semi-final replay – Kilkenny have generally had the upper hand in this fixture.
They continued to flex their muscles on the resumption and had moved seven points ahead (0-19 to 0-12) by the third-quarter mark.
Although Keogh found the range late on for Dublin, a 63rd minute penalty from the ever-influential TJ Reid helped to ease the Cats over the line.
