GALWAY MANAGER ANTHONY Cunningham tipped his hat to the “sharper Championship team” as Dublin put them to the sword and took their Leinster title.
The capital was celebrating its first provincial hurling crown since 1961 last night after Anthony Daly’s men clinched the Bob O’Keeffe Cup with a 2-25 to 2-13 win in Croke Park.
It was the Dubs’ fifth championship outing in as many weeks but there were no signs of fatigue as they pulled away in the closing stages, killing off the comeback after goals from Joe Canning and David Burke gave the Tribesmen a glimmer of hope.
“Our congratulations to Dublin, the better team won on the day, the sharper Championship team,” Cunningham said afterwards.
“I think they showed fantastic skill, fantastic fitness levels and fantastic heart and they were the clear winners.”
The performance was Dublin’s best of the summer so far, a far cry from the damp squib they produced in the drawn quarter-final against Wexford and further evidence of the progression they have shown in each game since.
Galway on the other hand came to Croke Park having played just one game since losing the league semi-final back in April: a rather uninspiring win against Laois in the semi-finals.
They must now wait until after next weekend’s Phase III qualifiers before they find out who they will face in the All-Ireland quarter-finals.
Dublin’s Johnny McCaffrey tries to dispossess Conor Cooney of Galway (©INPHO/Ryan Byrne)
“The more matches you have and if you can come through them, it builds your confidence, it builds your skill,” Cunningham said, “but we are still looking forward to this day three weeks.
“That’s our big Championship day now and we are still only one step behind Dublin now. It’s do or die the next day.”
In the meantime, he hopes to learn some lessons from Dublin’s improvement over the last five weekends.
“I think the way they are progressing, they are the most progressive team in the country. They are progressing at the fastest rate and it’s more a lesson for us. How can we copy what they are doing?
“They have progressed each match they have played – the first day against Wexford on their own admission wouldn’t have been on a par of what you would expect of Dublin but they have moved on massively. That’s a big lesson for us, how much we can improve on today.”
