Kilkenny are through to the final of this year’s Allianz Hurling League Division 1 after defeating Cork at UPMC Nowlan Park yesterday
Kilkenny put in an impressive performance to beat on-form Cork in this year’s hurling league semi-final yesterday. Cork came into the game as favourites having topped group 1 having won four games and drawn with Clare. A first-half goal from ‘Mossy’ Keoghan gave Kilkenny a three-point lead at the interval 1-12 to 0-12.
Man of the Match Billy Drennan converted a penalty ten minutes into the second half to put the Cats well in control.
Cork had Eoin Downey red-carded in the 50th minute of the game and after that Kilkenny drove on and never looked like they were going to surrender the lead. Cork didn’t roll over and kept fighting right to the final whistle but Pat Ryan will be disappointed with the result considering the performances in the league before yesterday’s game. Kilkenny however will be delighted to be contesting their first league finals since 2008 but will need to improve if they’re going to get the better of All-Ireland champions Limerick who defeated the cats in last year’s decider.
Speaking to KCLR after the game, Manager Derek Lyng said:-
“We knew Cork was one of the inform teams in the league along with Limerick, we knew it was going to be a tough test for us. I’m really happy with the attitude right from the very start, we hunted in packs, we were chasing hard and the hurling was really good, we played with a lot of confidence. The sending-off had a big bearing on the game but in terms of our own attitude and the way we went about it I was very happy”
“Without the goals, it was going to be very tight at the end even though we had the extra player, it was really important that we took the goals, we had a couple of half chances but we took the goals well. we have plenty to work on and improve on whether we won or lost today it’s about improving the next 3-4 weeks and getting ready for the championship we are happy with the win and its great to be in a final”
When put to Lyng that before the game TJ Reid and Adrian Mullen were pucking about before the game and were looking ready for action, Lyng replied:- “They’ve been working really hard away from it, they’re getting closer to being ready for action and we’ll see how they are in the next couple of weeks. We want a competitive squad and a lot of lads put their hands up again today and that’s what we asked them, we told them to grab the jersey when they have it and we’ve seen that competition there with the lads coming back and that’s what you want to see”
Lyng is under no illusion that the game against Limerick will be a tough one “Look they’re a phenomenal team there’s no question about it, I think it’s a great opportunity for our lads to test themselves against a super team like that and we can only learn from that. It’s something to look forward to”.
LIsten back to the interview below: