Kilkenny 3-24

Galway 0-21

THE warning signs were there. Losing to both Wexford and Dublin in last year’s Leinster championship, and suffering three league thumpings this Spring, there was a shadow hanging over the Galway hurlers heading to Nowlan Park last Saturday.

And the atmosphere has darkened further after the insipid Tribesmen sustained their joint heaviest championship defeat since falling to Kilkenny on a 4-20 to 1-10 scoreline in the All-Ireland qualifiers of 2004.

Adding to the sense of local despair and continuing an alarming trend in 2025, this was Galway’s fourth defeat in seven competitive matches, and all have been by a deflating margin of a dozen points.

Before our eyes, Galway’s form has fallen off a cliff over the past 12 months, and there is understandably little optimism of a major revival in fortunes in the short term. The statistics don’t lie.

Whatever small chance supporters were giving Galway of maintaining their positive provincial round-robin record against the Cats, that dissipated completely once the team was announced. After all the trials and experimentation, surely this wasn’t the best 15 available?

Yet, the temptation to put the boot in should be resisted. What’s to be gained from kicking a team and management when they are down, even if what unfolded at the home of Kilkenny hurling was unacceptable?

Unlike others, I decline to accuse the Galway players of not trying or of throwing in the towel, but when you compare their work rate and intensity to Clare’s in the second half against Cork in Ennis on Sunday, or Tipperary’s for the entire match against Limerick in Thurles later that same afternoon, the men in maroon hardly put their bodies on the line.

And goodness knows, it wasn’t as if Kilkenny were anything exceptional. The hosts turned over possession on several occasions in the opening half and were guilty of over-elaboration, but they possessed virtually all the game breakers.

Despite a positive start – the teams were level after 22 minutes – for Galway to end up being beaten so badly only compounds the gloom. There were too many unforced errors; the attack was toothless apart from Cathal Mannion; while the backs were simply too loose.

The rot started when goalkeeper Darach Fahy fumbled a routine pick-up after Billy Ryan’s point effort dropped short, leading to an Adrian Mullen goal out of nothing in the third minute; while at the other end of the field, forwards Tom Monaghan, Conor Whelan, Tiernan Killeen, Declan McLaughlin and Brian Concannon, who did win a few frees, managed a paltry four points from play between them.

Pictured: Kilkenny’s Cian Kenny Getts his pass away despite the attentions of Galway’s John Fleming and Conor Cooney in the Leinster Senior Hurling Championship at Nowlan Park on Saturday. Photo: David Cunniffe.