COLM BOYLE

AHEAD of the All-Ireland series, all the talk was of a 'big four' that had suddenly emerged.

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Well, Dublin showed on Saturday evening that this quartet — Armagh, Donegal, Galway and Kerry — are all vulnerable to those in the chasing pack.

To describe Dublin's win over Galway as an ambush would be wrong considering the ridiculous amount of All-Ireland medals that the core group of the Dublin squad have. But it was a timely reminder that class is permanent and no one demonstrated that more than Ciaran Kilkenny.

This is not the best Dublin team that Kilkenny has been a part of and it was far from one of the biggest games he has played in, but it was one of his most influential games in a Dublin jersey.

That's a statement I didn't think I would be saying at this stage of Kilkenny's career but what we witnessed on Saturday evening was an act of defiance. Think of Roy Keane in Turin in 1999 and you're getting close to Kilkenny's masterclass of leadership in Salthill.