By Kevin Egan

The loss of four players on the morning of the game is something that would have been considered a freak occurrence just 18 months ago, but it can be added to the long list of unforeseen knock-on effects that are part of Irish society’s attempt to get to grips with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dublin manager Mattie Kenny had to deal with exactly that setback yesterday morning, when he learned that Cian O’Callaghan, Ronan Hayes, Fergal Whitely and Oisín O’Rorke were ruled out of his plans. Compounding the problem for the Galway native was the lack of time to adjust to their absence.

“It was disappointing coming this morning, if it was something that happened earlier in the week, we could maybe deal with it more” he said after their Leinster final defeat.

“In fairness, I talked about building a squad through the league so it was an opportunity for lads to come into the 26 and come on the team.

“We asked the guys to go out there and be brave and to compete and take the game to the opposition. They did that and as the second half wore on, there’s no argument that Kilkenny were the better team and finished strong. We picked up two significant injuries — we lost Eoghan after the first minute and then Mark Schutte, so they’re the knocks we took along the way.

“The Leinster championship finished for us today, Kilkenny were worthy winners, but we’re now into the All-Ireland series and we’ve a quarter-final to prepare for in two weeks’ time. We have to dust ourselves down, go back and get prepared for that, and come back stronger than today” he continued.

“Is it an excuse? No, it’s not. The lads came in did really well, and to be fair Kilkenny, they finished the stronger. Having said that, we hit 17 wides today so our execution wasn’t at the level we’d like it to be at”.

Kenny stressed that the issue of seeking a postponement, or feeling hard done by about this tough break, didn’t cross his mind.

“I think Croke Park made themselves very, very clear that these games had to go ahead. It wasn't even something we considered. There was an opportunity there today for other guys. We had to call four guys into the panel this morning and there were other guys stepping into the team. That's what squads are for really.

“We're proud of the guys, we'll regroup again now. When we hurl again there'll be six teams left in the competition now and we'll be one of the six. So we've got to get ready for that quarter-final and give a really, really good account of ourselves there. I guarantee you these guys will bounce back from this now and we'll come back stronger in two weeks' time”.

The whole matter also served as a further reminder that Covid hasn’t gone away, which is a message that Kenny was happy to reinforce.

“This Delta variant is hitting that 15 to 30-year-old age group. I think for all club and county teams, we're in more danger than we were anytime in the last 18 months because this (variant) is so widespread in that younger population and nobody is vaccinated in that population. I think we've all got to just double down, and we have been doing that because all inter-county teams are kind of operating in their own bubble.

“We understand the importance and seriousness of it. So we've just got to go back and double down on our own protocols. It cost us today but we've got to make sure that it's not an issue for us in two weeks' time”.