It has often been said that Kilkenny’s high-octane championship hurling works because it only has to be applied in earnest twice a year, in the All-Ireland semi-final and final. More frequent pushing of the engine to its limits, it has been suggested, could lead to blown gaskets and a loss of forward momentum.

If this be true, then this year’s new championship setup posed something of a conundrum for the Cats. Not only did they have to face new challengers in the form of Galway, but Dublin were also showing signs of being able to offer a sterner examination than Wexford or Offaly have managed in recent years.

Kilkenny’s response, it would appear, has been to take a calculated risk in playing their Leinster championship games with the accelerator a long way from the floor, with extra gas being applied if and when required. Thus, when Galway for a moment looked as though they could be about to spring a surprise, Kilkenny just opened the throttle for ten minutes, scored nine points on the trot, and then eased back to cruise home. Against Dublin, Kilkenny were never led, and also seemed able to put a couple of further scores on the board whenever the Dubs threatened to close the gap.

This, of course, is a risky strategy. If Dublin, or Galway, had managed to conjure up a late goal, then the fat could really have been in the fire in the closing minutes. But any assessor of the probabilities would have been aware of the limited firepower in these counties’ forward lines and would have written down their chances of getting two successive scores in a tight finish.

Brian Cody will be well aware that the challengers from the south that his team are likely to meet in August and September will pose a stronger threat up front. That is the time to push the pedal to the floor from the off, to suffocate their opponents and to make sure they have enough leeway on the scoreboard to rule out any chance of late comebacks.

This may seem unfair to Dublin, who won many new admirers with the quality of their play and their unstinted application from start to finish. However, it seems clear that Kilkenny were playing well below the level which saw them vapourise Cork and Waterford last year. This is apparent from an unusually high error count, particularly in the shooting department. Even then, their error count was below that of Dublin’s. Where they had six bad misses, Dublin had seven. Where they drove just one ball out over the sideline, Dublin did it six times. Where the Cats only had two fumbles or control errors in the second half, Dublin had eight.

In the general set pieces, Dublin secured parity with their illustrious opponents. They won half of their own puckouts and 56% of Kilkenny’s. Of 51 long balls (including puckouts) sent into the Dublin defence and landing on top of opposing players, the Dublin defence won 29. At the other end, the Kilkenny defence won 31 of 53 such balls. In other words, Dublin had as much primary possession as Kilkenny – the key difference was in how this possession was used. Here, Kilkenny’s greater experience and field craft proved decisive. Where Dublin on occasion were inclined to panic or take wrong options in pressure situations, Kilkenny rarely do this. Furthermore, the Cats have a marvellous facility to put players into space and provide telling passes. The two Kilkenny goals are a case in point. Where a team hunts in packs (as Dublin did last Sunday) they are bound to leave opponents unmarked. Richie Power seemed to have nowhere to go when he hit the deck with three Dublin players around him in the 16th minute, but he showed great vision in sending out a hand pass to the unmarked Martin Comerford who steamed in to finish to the net. And when Michael Rice came through from midfield in the 56th minute, two defenders came out to meet him, thus again leaving Comerford unmarked for the pass leading to the killer second goal.

Even if other aspects of their play were below par, one aspect of the Kilkenny ethos was again apparent last Sunday: work ethic. For all the talk of Dublin’s work rate, in fact Kilkenny made more plays in both halves – 85:71 in the first half and 88:87 in the second. They have found a real workhorse in Michael Rice who, for the second game in a row, led his team’s play count with 21 plays, just one ahead of Tommy Walsh. However, in terms of quality points, Walsh was the clear leader at 45 to Rice’s 40.

To explain the quality points system more clearly: Each play is awarded quality points on a range of one to five, with one point typically being awarded for a play which does not benefit the player’s team (e.g. a bad wide or misplaced pass); two points being awarded for a routine play (e.g. where a player gets possession without opposition and bangs the ball down the field); three points being awarded for a good play (e.g. winning the ball under pressure, giving a good pass, or getting a good score); four points being awarded for an excellent play (e.g. long-range points taken on the run, or Gary Maguire’s save from Aidan Fogarty’s snap shot prior to the Kilkenny penalty) and five points for a superb play (e.g. Eoin Larkin’s marvellous first half point last Sunday). There is obviously a lot of subjective judgement involved in awarding quality points, but the system does attempt to distinguish between plays in terms of their overall significance.

Martin Comerford, official man-of-the-match, got 35 points from 15 plays with John Dalton and Derek Lyng also making it into the thirties. Dublin’s most impressive player was David Treacy, with 37 points from 14 plays, ahead of Joey Boland with 35 points from 16 plays. The only other Dublin player to make the thirty mark was John McCaffrey. However, honourable mention should be made of Alan McCrabbe, who garnered 27 points from general play but also weighed in with some excellent freetaking, including that wonderful pointed sideline late in the second half.

Another key feature of this game was the powerful second half performance of the central spine of the Kilkenny defence, with JJ Delaney making eight of his ten plays, and John Tennyson making all of his nine plays, after the change of ends. This, to an extent, reflects an increasing tendency on the part of the Dublin players to hit long balls down the middle and their inability to learn from the fact that, in most cases, the ball came straight back. Anthony Daly might also look at his goalkeeper whose tendency to hit balls down the middle contrasted with Kilkenny’s man between the sticks, PJ Ryan.

Overall, however, Daly can be very pleased with his charges, given their current stage of development. It was a wise move to play John McCaffrey as a seventh defender and to rotate his midfield and forwards, thereby allowing high energy levels to be maintained in the most demanding middle third of the park. Kilkenny were always kept within reach which meant there was always the possibility that a goal would leave the Dubs with an actual chance of winning the game. Among the key positives were the continuing excellence of the full back line, with Niall Corcoran and Oisín Gough showing astonishing composure for players with such little experience. David Treacy looks like a jewel, and both Liam Rushe and Shane Durkin will undoubtedly build on their rich potential from experiences such as this. Daly will also be pleased with the significant contributions made by substitutes David Curtin and Simon Lambert, and with the very fact that he was able to get Ross O’Carroll onto the pitch. It may take two or three years, but with Ronan Fallon also to come back, it seems clear that Dublin have the material here to become serious challengers at this level in the not too distant future.

Play ratings (quality points in brackets, dead ball plays not counted):

Kilkenny: Ryan PJ 4 (9); Kavanagh M 6 (15); Delaney JJ 8 (28); Tyrrell J 8 (15); Walsh T 20 (45); Tennyso