Dowling: "That's worth about 10 training sessions for us"

Sunday was a special day for Brian Dowling as the Kildare boss managed a game against his native Kilkenny for the very first time – and what a display it was from his charges.

“If you'd told me before the game I'd be disappointed not to win it, I would have took that,” he said.

“We're obviously disappointed because we were ahead for most of that game. After Mossy obviously got the goal, we pushed ahead and were ahead at half time.

“We held on to that lead in the second half, missed a couple of chances. We had a chance there, Jack Sheridan was probably through, just didn't see the pass and that could have been a massive moment if we'd got the goal there.

“But look, incredibly proud. The Walsh Cup is about learning and trying to improve and trying to get confidence for us. We had Antrim last week, Kilkenny today, two massive games. I know people are giving out about pre-season competitions, but this is absolutely brilliant for us to get this game down against Kilkenny, one of the best teams in Ireland. That's worth about 10 training sessions for us."

Dowling said he was “extremely proud” of his team, especially given the quality of the opposition and the fact that Kilkenny were forced to empty their bench in the closing stages to make sure of the win.

“When you see John Donnelly coming on, Paddy Deegan, Mikey Butler, Eoin Cody, Richie Reid, all the lads there who are first team players for Kilkenny. That shows what our lads were able to do; Ed MacDermott coming on there made a huge difference as well,” he said.

“But we just stayed going. I love that about our lads, that we didn't give up I said at half time: ‘are were just happy to play for half an hour or can we stay going?’ And we stayed going, which was absolutely brilliant to see.

“Obviously were disappointed not to win because there was a chance there of a massive scalp, but we probably just ran our legs in the end. Kilkenny just got a run on us there in the last ten minutes.

“We probably struggled to get the ball past their half-back line. But that's a learning for us now and we just have to push it on. It is only January, as we said already, but it gives a bit of confidence going into a very tough league campaign.”

Dowling insisted the performance would help instill a lot of belief into his team. “I'm constantly telling these lads how good they are and that they do belong up here. But you don't know until you actually end up in the game. When you go across those white lines, can we actually compete?," he said.

"We won the Joe McDonagh last year, but we were extremely disappointed in the performers against Dublin. But I don't think that was a true reflection on the group six days after the Joe McDonagh.

"Today, we just absolutely threw everything at it. I was delighted with the Kilkenny team that was named on Friday night. They went strong and I knew that they'd have a strong bench if they were ahead of us. That's the way it panned out.

"The lads can leave here with a lot of hope, a lot of positivity. We just have to build on it now over the next few weeks - no good coming up here, turning up, and the next couple of weeks then, we don't build on it. We have to build on it, we have to improve and keep getting better week on week."