'There's plenty of hurling in Leinster' - but where does the competition really sit?

IT WASN’T EXACTLY A call to arms, but Eoin Cody’s acceptance speech when taking delivery of the Bob O’Keefe Cup last year was a little push-back against those that do a bit of panting around the Munster hurling championship.

“There’s plenty of hurling in Leinster,” said the Ballyhale man, a verbal echo of those t-shirts popular around two decades ago and worn by Kilkenny and Wexford supporters that proclaimed, ‘Munster hurling me arse.’

At the time, you might have even gotten swept away in the mood Cody said it in, given the adrenalin of the closing stages of the 2023 Leinster hurling final.

Galway had poured themselves into the final quarter of the game, echoing the streaky nature of the contest.

They had raced 0-6 to 0-1 clear by the seventh minute. Kilkenny returned fire with an unanswered 1-5. On it went in this fashion, the waves beating against the boats until they arrived in the tumult of four minutes left and the sides level. Kevin Cooney and TJ Brennan put two points in it, in Galway’s favour.

A final ball went to the corner of the Galway defence and as big bodies stooped in exhaustion, Kilkenny’s John Donnelly whipped a ground stroke square.

It fell to Pádraig Mannion. He got his toe underneath it and gave it a knackered boot. But it fell to spritely substitute Cillian Buckley. He weaved past TJ Brennan and unloaded a shot for the one unguarded slot of Éanna Murphy’s goal. It found it.

As finishes go, Kilkenny are not hugely synonymous with drama. This was drama unconfined. Without Brian Cody on the line to dampen their ardour, the Cats launched an impromptu pile-on with Buckley at the bottom.

What did Shakin’ Stevens say on the jacket quote of Alan Partridge’s ‘Bouncing Back’? Ah yes; ‘lovely stuff.’

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After the sugar hit though, the guilty contemplation. Where do we rate the Leinster senior hurling championship? And by that, we don’t mean the original trophy, with it’s six gallons capacity that was sadly but inevitably retired.

But as a competition. Kilkenny’s domination with 75 titles is even more emphatic that Dublin’s possession of the football equivalent.

Dublin are the next closest challenger with 24 triumphs, but only one since 1961. Wexford, always popular winners for their sheer exuberance, don’t win it enough, Offaly’s nine triumphs came in a 16-season period and Laois won in 1914, 1915 and 1949.

So it’s not as if it’s leaping with novelty, despite the various permutations and shake-ups down through the years.

The addition of Galway has lended it a western exotic sense, but at the same time has squeezed out other teams.

In fourteen round robin games when they were staged in 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023, they have only lost one game, that coming against Dublin in 2019.

Since 2010, they have made the final ten times, but won only three. Since the switch to round robin format they won just once; that coming after a replay against Kilkenny in 2018.

Go further down into the numbers and the dominance that Kilkenny and Galway exert over other teams is almost absolute.

The best way to look at it, is take the greater sample size. In games that Galway and Kilkenny have played outside of their meetings, the average winning margin in the round robin years has been just under 11 points per game.

After the straight knockout formats of the Covid years, the gap grew ever wider. What once were hammerings now turned into humiliations. The margins grew to an average of 13 points.

In some cases, it is cruel. Leinster is identified as the gateway to proper, serious hurling for the aspirational counties such as Laois, Westmeath, Carlow and northern guests Antrim. But you wonder how they stomach some of the margins of defeat.

Westmeath have had some tough evenings. In 2022 for example, they fell to Kilkenny by 16 points a week before Galway mowed them down by 25.

The frustrating thing is how they were able to turn a switch and go from that brace of results to earning a draw against Wexford in the middle of that May and backing it up with a handsome win over Laois.

Things were even more puzzling last year. Losing to Kilkenny in round 1 by 22 points and then 34 points to Galway in round three was enough to have them flinging hurls onto a bonfire. But under Joe Fortune they were able to flip their mindset to beat Wexford by two points in Chadwick’s Wexford Parkin the fourth round.

Westmeath manager Joe Fortune.

Even at that, they were hosed by Antrim in the final round, to the tune of 14 points.

All of that is of no concern to Kilkenny as Derek Lyng looks to defend their title. Round 2 brings a trip to Pearse Stadium this Sunday.

There’s a little bit of tinkering with the Kilkenny line-up and some massive names as absent, namely Paul Murphy and Eoin Cody.

Galway have named a strong team but it’s the strength of the bench that catches the eye; Gearóid McInerney, Evan Niland, Joseph Cooney, Jason Flynn and Jonathan Glynn is a world of recognised experience to throw on.

In a tight game, in Pearse Stadium, if could provide ‘the differ.’

But does any of it matter when the two are destined to meet again in the provincial final?

And the answer yes to be yes, because of the storyline that drowns Galway; Henry Shefflin as manager, and his inability, to date, to deliver silverware.

It should have happened for him last year. In order for his management to feel vindicated, he needs to deliver this time round.

Starting with Sunday.