Kilkenny make short work of disappointing Dublin

Kilkenny shot themselves to within reaching distance of the semi-finals when scoring an easy victory over disappointing Dublin.

The Cats will enjoy home advantage against Waterford next Sunday in a fixture that should be a home one for the Suirsiders. However, the game has been switched because of development work at Walsh Park.

With the winners guaranteed a semi-final spot, next weekend's derby tie should be a lively affair. Certainly, it will be better than this one-sided affair.

Kilkenny didn’t learn much from this average, listless clash. The Dubs were simply off colour from the start and offered little resistance. The visitors’ form improved for a while in the second half, but goals from Kilkenny captain, Eoin Cody in the 44th and 56th minutes buried the visitors (2-21 to 1-12).

Were it not for the gallant efforts of wing-forward, Donal Burke, who helped himself to 0-11, the Dubs would have been hammered out of sight.

The losers were in big trouble at half-time when they trailed by 0-17 to 0-08. Dublin created the first scoring chance after only 30 seconds when Alex Considine shot into the side netting from a tight angle on the left.

However, they went missing for a long spell after that. With Billy Drennan in fine shooting form, Kilkenny breezed 0-07 to 0-01 clear by the 12th minute.

Dublin were leaving wide open spaces all over the field and compounded by a series of handling errors, Kilkenny were able to drill the ball around without coming under any meaningful pressure.

The end of the first quarter was reached with struggling Dublin having 0-02 on the scoreboard, both points from frees by Burke. They continued to drift off the pace as defender Padraig Walsh (2), Cian Kenny and Paddy Deegan joined Drennan on the scoring