Galway manager Micheál Donoghue said he was happy with his side's performance in their bounce-back win over Kilkenny in Nowlan Park but stressed his priority was developing the squad in time for championship.
The westerners entered today smarting from last weekend's heavy home defeat to Tipperary, which turbo-changed the talk of transition and a possible fallow period, but they were a different beast from the off this afternoon, Portumna corner forward Declan McLoughlin burying a goal with their first score of the game.
Leading 1-11 to 0-10 at the break, they built on that advantage in the third quarter and when McLoughlin fired home his second goal on the rebound in the 47th minute, they established an eight-point lead.
That was Kilkenny's cue for a relentless surge, the Cats hitting 1-06 without reply, Eoin Cody's goal concluding the sequence to push them one point ahead with seven minutes remaining.
However, from there, Galway found another wind, Jason Flynn landing three frees and Conor Whelan floating over the final point to assure them of the points.
"We're very happy with it," Donoghue admitted to RTÉ Sport. "Disappointed with the performance we had last week at home and obviously we were looking for a response. For the last few weeks, training had gone really well and maybe our performance last week didn't illustrate that.
"We went back this week, worked really hard on the training ground and they transferred that onto the pitch today."
As to the fade-out in the middle of the second half, when their eight-point lead was wiped out, Donoghue reckoned his players would benefit from the experience.
"There was probably one or two mistakes but no better team than Kilkenny to exploit them. When you get into that situation and the crowd is behind them (Kilkenny), it's a good test of character for the players.
"Already, in a short space of time, we can see there's a strong spirit in the group. They worked for each other. They ground out a few scores to get us over the line.
"We know Division 1 of the league is very competitive. For us, it's about developing players and getting a settled team by the time the championship comes along."
Galway's success owed much to the half-back line, with former hurler of the year nominee Padraic Mannion floating over two points and Clarinbridge's Gavin Lee landing 0-03 and excelling at centre-back, often a problem position for the side over the years.
"It's a pivotal line on the pitch and I thought they hurled really well. Gavin, first day out at centre-back, he did well."
'Gavin Lee could fix that problem' - @MrJackieTee on Gavin Lee's performance at centre-back, which laid the platform for Galway's win at Nowlan Park#RTEgaa
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Kilkenny manager Derek Lyng praised his side's second-half surge but said they were disappointed with the showing overall, acknowledging that they did deserve anything from the game.
Lyng, who confirmed that TJ Reid, Adrian Mullen and John Donnelly would not be available for next weekend's game against Wexford, said they had allowed Galway too much room in the first half.
"We weren't sharp enough. Galway were the better team. We did well to get back in the game. But overall, we didn't deserve it.
"They're a good team, they've good hurlers. They were that bit sharper, they were finding their pass and their touch was good. And they hurt us.
"We weren't putting enough pressure on them. If you don't, good teams will punish you.
"We are looking to find players but we're still looking to perform, we're still looking to win. We're working on a lot of things at the minute and sometimes maybe that extra pass is not needed.
"The players are trying to do the right thing but we would be disappointed with it overall."
