ON the night of the drawn National League final in May, Ger Loughnane and Henry Shefflin were on the League Sunday TV programme.
After analysing the Clare-Waterford match, Loughnane and Shefflin began to preview the Championship.
When the talk turned to Kilkenny, Loughnane was asked to explain his recent comments where he described the Kilkenny team as “functional beyond belief” and that “there is no way they should be going for three-in-a-row”.
Loughnane didn’t back down on his original comments but he expanded his argument.
“Clare and Waterford and Tipp and Cork, they would love to be functional,” said Loughnane. “But maybe this is an era of a functional team getting the
better of teams that are not – I won’t say dysfunctional – functional.
“With Kilkenny, you get this relentless workrate from the start. They have this attitude that nobody will outwork us or outmuscle us. They will set themselves up well. They will deny everybody else space. And then everybody will work in a totally honest way, from start to finish.
“They are a team of the modern era, of what we have had in hurling over the last two or three years. But in no way, personnel wise, talent wise, whatever way you like, can you compare them to the Kilkenny team of 2006-2012.”
In his lifetime, Loughnane described how he had seen teams winning two-in-a-row on eight occasions. He only saw the three-in-a-row done twice, and it was achieved by two iconic sides – Cork 1976-’78 and Kilkenny 2006-’08.
In Loughnane’s opinion, this Kilkenny team – even if they manage to win three-in-a-row – doesn’t fit that profile or status. “In a historical context,” he said, “I would love to see a team join those who are of equal status to them talent-wise. And it’s a reflection on the other teams out there that they can’t stop them.”
Of course, Shefflin didn’t agree, insisting that if Kilkenny do win the three-in-a-row this year, their status as an iconic team will be impossible to dispute.
“I don’t think we’re being fair to those players,” he said.
“It’s easy for us to sit down and talk about the last three-in-a-row team because we’ve time and reflection. If they win the All-Ireland this year they deserve to be up there with those teams.”
Shefflin has a point but so has Loughnane. Their pursuit of another three-in-a-row places as much focus on everyone else, and their failure to bridge that gap, as it does on Kilkenny’s greatness.
Apart from Galway, Waterford, Tipperary (who won Munster) and Laois (who came through the Leinster round robin and then defeated Offaly) the rest of the chasing pack had a disappointing 2015 season. Tipp were also unhappy with their All-Ireland semi-final display. Laois were trounced by Galway.
Most of the teams which underperformed last year can do much better but few of them have so far this summer. Despite winning the League, Clare crashed and burned against Waterford. Cork and Limerick were terrible against Tipperary. Dublin collapsed in the second half against Kilkenny. Laois have gone backwards. Wexford have regressed even more. Tipp and Waterford have done everything expected of them so far but they still have to prove that they can beat Kilkenny. So have Galway, who face them in Sunday’s Leinster final.
Despite losing even more players this year, Kilkenny remain the standard that each one of those sides has to reach. Kilkenny still have brilliant players, especially up front. After the mass of big-name retirements in 2014, the belief among the current group is that they are only getting started, that more All-Irelands are well within their grasp.
Teams also need to psychologically work on trying to ensure the outcome against Kilkenny doesn’t become a self-fulfilling prophecy, to believe that they can be beaten.
The biggest disappointment of Dublin’s second half performance was how it effectively was that self-fulfilling prophesy. Kilkenny have always believed that if they are within touching distance of the opposition at half-time, the game is over.
“There is never any panic in a Kilkenny dressing room, especially at half-time,” said former goalkeeper, David Herity last year.
“Even if you’re behind, there is this feeling of, ‘Relax, we will win’. You see lads talking to one another and figuring it out. There is this general belief then, ‘Yeah, we have it sorted, now we’ll go back out and do it’.
“You trust [Brian] Cody. He trusts you. You know you’re going to get a whole new lease of life for the second half. It’s an amazing thing to be part of. Once Kilkenny are alive and still breathing at
half-time, they normally come out and just destroy teams.”
Yet as they get ready to unleash that onslaught, teams are nearly already submerged beneath that tide before the half even starts. Just like Galway in the third quarter of last year’s All-Ireland final, Dublin caved in.
When the Dublin squad spoke about the match afterwards, some of the older players admitted to backing off. One defender said he went into his shell, that he began to play it safe instead of continuing to attack the ball and the play, which was something Dublin said they would do all evening. Some of the younger players couldn’t understand that mentality because they had never backed off against Kilkenny at underage.
That is the challenge facing Galway on Sunday, that if they are in the game at half-time that they can drive it on. That they can take ownership of the game, that they make that second half their half, and not hand the initiative to Kilkenny.
If they can, and they do, Galway have a great chance of winning. And then, everyone will see if Loughnane is going to be proved right, or if Kilkenny will continue to prove him and everyone else wrong.
