Enigmatic Galway seek to prevent Kilkenny sextet
It's the ninth time that the pair have met in a provincial decider since Galway were welcomed into Leinster back in 2009.
Or, to put it more precisely, since Mammy and Daddy on Central Council insisted that the other Leinster counties were going to have to let Galway play with them.
Kilkenny, with their masterful self-confidence, were the only Leinster hurling county to signal their approval for Galway's entrance into the province. Although past comments from 'Taggy' Fogarty suggest that Brian Cody may not have been consulted on this.
"Brian would be a traditionalist," 'Taggy' said on Newstalk a few years ago, before indicating that the notion of Galway winning the Bob O'Keeffe Cup sat about as well with Cody as the prospect of a new Casement Park sits with the publicans of Clones.
This latest edition of the fixture isn't thrumming with as much back-story as when Henry Shefflin wore the Galway manager's shirt.
The Leinster hurling championship became the unlikely home of soap-opera melodrama back in the summer of 2022.
Cody's post-match handshake with his greatest ever player after the Salthill round-robin game had all the warmth of the Bull McCabe's initial interaction with the Yank at auction. The many super slo-mos could have been overlain with the Eastenders outro sequence. If this were the States, 'The Handshake' would be a blockbuster ESPN documentary.
But Shefflin is gone from Galway now after three seasons in charge. Two of his campaigns consisted of respectable runs to the All-Ireland semi-final - in which they managed to soften the cough of the Munster supremacists in successive quarter-finals. His third and final season, however, was damningly abject.
Galway's 2017 All-Ireland winning manager Micheál Donoghue has returned, as one always envisioned he would at some stage. The big regret for most of their supporters is that he was ever gone from the role.
Kilkenny are leading 6-2 on the head-to-head on those Leinster finals. Galway's victories came in 2012, after that stunning first-half blitz which left people rubbing their eyes at the scoreline, and the 2018 replay in Thurles, when Taylor Swift and her fans were occupying Croke Park.
A couple of those Kilkenny victories were pure larceny. The 2020 Covid final belongs up there with the 1990 All-Ireland final in the Tribesmen's 'how-the-hell-did-we-lose-that?' hall of fame. Richie Hogan's genius is one reason.
Even more sickening for Galway was the 2023 decider when Padraic Mannion's booted clearance off the ground somehow managed to fly straight into Cillian Buckley's paw.
The 2022 Leinster final, Cody's last as manager, was more stop-start than an NFL game and probably the dullest televised hurling match of the 21st century.
These two have traditionally not brought a great following to provincial final day, none more so than in '12 when a tiny crowd from the west were there to witness their historic ambush. Only 24,483 were there for the last Leinster final between them in '23. A perusal of the Leinster final attendances over the past 15 years indicates the two biggest by a distance were in 2017 and 2019, which were also the only two in that span to involve Wexford.
While the Munster Council are cranking up the price to capitalise on demand, the Leinster Council are in outreach mode, with 20,000 free tickets made available to Under-16s.
Galway seem to have finally recovered their standing among their public after the insipid opening day display in Nowlan Park.
No assessment was gloomy enough after that particular no-show.
Remarkably, it was Galway's fourth 12-point defeat of the year, all three of their league losses coming by that margin. (So far in 2025, Galway have either won... or lost by 12 points).
Worst of all, they were devoured by a Kilkenny side without TJ Reid and who lost Adrian Mullen to injury after 15 minutes.
The fallout was ugly from that one. Galway hurling supporters, never averse to bouts of cosmic negativity, were consoling themselves that they might at least beat Antrim to stay in Leinster.
Coming on top of last year, it was confirmation that Galway were in the depths of 'transition' with no quick fix on the horizon.
The Offaly game in Tullamore - viewed with rare trepidation beforehand - panned out roughly like every other Offaly-Galway game has since 2012.
An imperious Cathal Mannion floated over 0-17 as they beat Wexford to at least ensure progression from Leinster. The Antrim game was a turkey shoot which doesn't warrant much analysis.
It was hard to find a pundit beforehand who was tipping Galway in Parnell Park.
Partly this was due to their spotty and careless record in that fixture. Niall Ó Ceallachain's team appeared to hold far greater allure to the punditry class than a Galway side still harbouring many of the same old faces from the mid-to-late 2010s.
In the end, the five-point margin over Dublin in the finish grossly understated their superiority.
One echo of Donoghue's triumphant 2017 season is the dearth of a Galway goal-scoring threat. They scored just one goal in the three relevant fixtures, which arrived very late against Wexford with the result already more or less settled.
In the second half in Parnell Park, a couple of serious goal opportunities went completely unexplored in favour of tap-over points. In the context of the game, it probably made sense. With the backing of a big wind, the shoot-on-sight policy was a wild success and the remorseless rat-a-tat of points was killing Dublin in the third quarter.
Amid all the talk of transition, the Galway team has a time-stood-still aspect to it. Micheál Donoghue seemed to give every able-bodied twenty-something male in south Galway a run during the league. John Fleming is one newcomer to nail down a starting spot but the team has a familiar feel.
The Mannions remain prominent. Five-time All-Star Daithí Burke - who "could play full-back without a hurl," as Cyril Farrell is wont to say - is still relied upon in defence.
Conor Whelan, struggling for form earlier in the season, embraced his blue-collar side with a scoreless but workmanlike display against Wexford, in which he turned over ball repeatedly. The scoring touch returned in the second half in Donnycarney when he looked to be motoring again.
The venerable David Burke, indisputably one of the county's all-time greats, was superb against the Dubs, a model of awareness and game-intelligence.
The Cats' heavy win over Galway in Nowlan Park in April was in fact their first round-robin victory in the fixture in six attempts, a detail that might trigger a double-take given Derek Lyng's side are pursuing a sixth Leinster title on the trot.
Hogan previously suggested that they were a tad lukewarm about the whole round-robin business. Perhaps given that Kilkenny, more than any other county, know they will be in the All-Ireland series, giving to the provincial league process the air of an extended preamble.
This might explain why they have yet to muster a 100% record in the group stages, despite hogging Bob O'Keeffe for the past half-decade. In 2025, they probably would have done so had they not put out an experimental side in the dead rubber against Wexford.
Typically, they've shaken off any round-robin listlessness in time for Leinster final day in Croke Park, last year's frightful demolition of Dublin being a prime example.
The busy midfield duo of Jordan Molloy and Cian Kenny were especially effective against Galway, hitting 0-05 from play between them.
Mossy Keoghan, Kilkenny's designated scorer from play for parts of the league, has hit a goal a game in his four appearances so far, with 1-02 each against Galway, Dublin and Antrim. Significantly, he took TJ Brennan for 0-07 from play in the Nowlan Park league game.
Mullen, recovered from his injury in the opening round, started the Wexford game in the odd location of centre-back though that's been written off as consequence-free experimentation.
However, the absence of the still-injured Eoin Cody is a major loss for the defending champions.
We're up on a decade since Kilkenny last claimed Liam MacCarthy, their longest barren run since 1947-57.
The irritation at tossing away last year's semi-final against Clare may still rankle, especially in light of Limerick's exit the following week.
In the eyes of the traditionalists, backing against Kilkenny in a Leinster final would be deemed as attention-seeking nonsense. Logically, they look like the more secure shout.
But would be entirely in keeping with the enigmatic beast that is Galway hurling for them to turn up and win having taken a pasting in the fixture two months earlier.
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