Cats lay down early marker

Earlier this week, Tipperary defender, Benny Dunne, revealed that Kilkenny are 'the lads you have to measure yourself against'. No real surprise there.

Just one minute into the second-half of Sunday's Allianz National Hurling league Division One tie at Nowlan Park the All-Ireland champions were an astonishing 21 points ahead of the reigning league champions. Now that was a surprise.

The Munster kingpins had, up to Sunday, an excellent record against the Cats; played them nine times since 2000, lost only once. Sunday's lacklustre, lethargic and ultimately laughable performance against Brian Cody's men blows that record and any other statistics, relevant or not, out of the water.

In the process, Kilkenny have laid down an early marker to the side that, one suspects, would have the greatest designs on wrestling All-Ireland honours off them at Croke Park in September.

When asked about the effort Kilkenny put into the league, Cody is frequently at a loss to understand why his side would not want to win the second most important national title in hurling. Kilkenny's awesome performance on Sunday, particularly in the opening 35 minutes, put meat on the bones of Cody's remarks.

Kilkenny not only beat their great rivals in the Marble City, they with toyed with them, like they would a side with far inferior hurlers than those at Liam Sheedy's disposal.

Sheedy admitted on Monday that two heavy training sessions earlier in the week had possibly 'taken the edge' off them. If that is the case then Tipperary are in serious trouble as heavy training sessions will surely be the order of the day as the championship approaches.

At the same time, Sheedy, who strangely seemed to be lacking his trademark animation on the line admitted: 'We can’t gloss it up. We were overpowered'.

Overpowered they certainly were. And early on. Kilkenny were clearly up for this match and keen to put the memory of an eight-points defeat in the league semi-final 12 months ago firmly to rest.

But did they have to be so stylish, confident, slick, ruthless and brilliant in doing it. Of course they did. That's the way they roll. Two of their goals came within six minutes. But it was the way the goals came about and were executed that led to a standing ovation from the Kilkenny faithful at the break.

Brendan Cummins put in a display of goalkeeping excellence in Croke Park against Kilkenny a few years ago but he was left wide open on a number of occasions by a shockingly loose Tipperary defence on Sunday.

Messrs Comerford, Brennan, Reid, Hogan left the Tipperary back six scratching their heads on a regular basis as they found holes that hadn't been exposed to the same extent by any team since the All-Ireland semi-final loss to Waterford last August. Ane we all saw what Kilkenny subsequently did to Davy Fitzgerald's troops in the final.

If this is Kilkenny's marker for 2009 then, more than any other year, teams such as Tipperary, Galway, Waterford and Cork may have to lower their expectations as the Cats look well on course for four-in-a-row.

All you could hope is that a performance like this may have raised it's lovely head too early and that Kilkenny will be there for the taking towards the business end of the championship. Wait a minute. What am I talking about? This is Kilkenny. They set the standard.