Effective and selfless.
Ciaran Kilkenny got on the ball 35 times against Westmeath in the Leinster football semi-final.
He scored 1-3.
He kicked one wide.
He completed 28 passes. He set up three scores directly and he won a free for a tap over in front of the posts.
Once – just once – did he give away possession.
If you were to break it down, Kilkenny had a decent afternoon:
- Scored 1-3
- Assisted 0-4
- Involved in build-up to five more scores
- Won three kickouts
Of Dublin’s 4-29, Ciaran Kilkenny had a key involvement in 2-11 of them.
But he keeps it very, very simple.
Kilkenny is a serious talent, everyone knows that. He could spread any defender on toast if he wanted to and he could run up frightening individual tallies if he went out to play for himself but he’s obviously instructed to play in a certain way and it’s proving effective.
Even the 35 possessions against Westmeath is a meek enough number for Kilkenny but, for large spells, he hugged the touchline and created as much space as possible for the Dublin attack amongst the opposition defensive swarm.
Here’s how the teams set up.
When the Dublin wing forward came into the game, he kept things a lot more basic than a man of his ability needs to.
Kilkenny attempted 29 passes. 28 of them found their men.
Of those 28, 24 of them were hand passes but he did manage to directly assist 0-3 of team mates’ scores with those handpasses and, with his four kick passes, one of them led to a goal.
But possession stats don’t always give you the full picture.
The Castleknock man wasn’t as penetrating as he can be – he’s generally been more considered in possession this year. Then again, with so many Westmeath bodies back, most of the Dublin players were a little slower in their attacks.
Kilkenny went sideways with the majority of his passes, opting to bring team mates into play more often than he would run at the Westmeath backline – when he did that, they shit themselves.
However, he was a ball of energy picking up the size five and moving it on but sometimes his selflessness was too much – at one stage in the second period he actually ran diagonally through the ‘D’ to the 21 but right past the centre of the posts and moved the ball out to the wing to McManamon. It still resulted in a score but it could’ve been an easier score for Kilkenny.
Interestingly though, he didn’t discriminate with his passes and his choice of offloads tell you something about how he’s being used.
Kilkenny passed the ball to 13 different players throughout the 70 minutes.
He set up three different men and his passing allowed half backs and midfielders to come onto the play and set up further scores with Kilkenny acting cover all the while.
He only won the ball six times though from forward kick passes from team mates. Most of the time, he came onto possession via a hand pass and, whilst that patience and measured play is enough to annihilate Westmeath, it’s the sort of thing that Tyrone would be licking their lips over.
Good, effective outing on Sunday but Dublin and Kilkenny will need to be more urgent with tougher tests – particularly without Connolly’s playmaking skills for the next two outings.
