LEINSTER COLLEGES SH A FINAL/Dublin Colleges 2-16 Kilkenny CBS 1-6:INTERESTING TIMES for Dublin hurling. The city's combined colleges' side brushed away the challenge of a brave Kilkenny CBS outfit in Carlow on Saturday underlining an excellence in underage activity which is beginning to rival that of Kilkenny.
It is odd to reflect that the Dublin boys were not only favourites going into the game against a Kilkenny team but performed comfortably in that role, taking a lead early on and never looked like having that lead threatened.
They did all this without talents such as Conor Clinton and Liam Rushe, both of whom were injured. And in David Treacy they had the game's outstanding talent.
Treacy the centre forward on last year's Dublin minor side operated out at right half forward on Saturday (despite being picked for the other flank) but his contribution on Saturday was central to the game's outcome.
His play from dead ball was impressive but each of his five points from play had a epigrammatic quality which seemed to put an end to any argument about Dublin's right to be favourites.
Dublin, having scored the first four points of the game (two from Treacy), had built up a reassuring nine-point lead before the sides went in for their half-time tea.
Martin Gaffney, a sturdily impressive presence for CBS, had moved to midfield but even his welcome interventions didn't overshadow the tidy work and touch exuding from Ronan Walsh and Joey O'Callaghan in that sector. The Dublin forward lines had sufficient ball upon which to thrive. The game seemed wrapped up long before the end.
For CBS, Gaffney offered moments of reprieve as did the speedy Paul Guinan, whose injury-time semi-final goal got CBS to this stage.
Dublin have some serious forward power at their disposal, however, and with Niall McMorrow, a minor star last summer, weighing in with another four points from play the city boys didn't lack a cutting edge.
Long before the sending off of Brian Kennedy, for a rash challenge, weakened the CBS's hand still further, Dublin had closed down business by leaving just two players on their inside forward line and crowding the midfield space.
Goals from Ciarán Brennan, a stern ground stroke after the ball had ping-ponged around the goal area, and Conor Gough, a lovely scuttling corner forward's score as he burst in from the left, had stretched the margin.
Dublin closed down the game confidently and expertly. The concern over the convincing nature of their win is redolent only of better days for other sides in a competition which is necessarily cyclical. DJ Carey was in St Kieran's along with Adrian Ronan and Charlie Carter when they won the 1988 final by 32 points.
Two years earlier Birr had beaten St Kieran's by 15 points in the final. The teams who inflicted those defeats represented high-water marks for the systems that produced them. Dublin achieved their own high-water mark on Saturday.
DUBLIN COLLEGES:F McGarry; D Ó Maoléidigh, R O'Carroll, D Curran; R O'Loughlin, C O'Farrell, M Quilty; R Walsh, J O'Callaghan; J Winters (0-1),P Buckeridge, D Treacy (capt) (0-10, five frees), C Brennan (1-1),A McEnerney, N McMurrow (0-4). Subs: C Gough (1-0)for McEnerney (34 mins), N Ó Muineacháin for Winters (40 mins), L Rushe for Quilty (55 mins).
KILKENNY CBS:P Byrne; J Traynor, D Kenny, E Kearney; J Keohane, R Doyle, E Lamone (capt); P Galvin, S Murphy; Oliver Walsh, Oisín Walsh, M Gaffney; M Bambrick (0-2), P Guinan (1-4, two frees),B Kennedy Subs:A Byrne for Keohane (42 mins), P Cantwell for O Walsh (45 mins).
Referee: S Whelan(Wexford).
