Kilkenny's Paddy Deegan is hoping to use the crushing defeat to Galway in the Allianz Hurling League as extra motivation for Sunday’s Leinster Hurling Championship opener with the Tribesmen in Pearse Stadium.
Alarm bells were ringing for Kilkenny after losing the match by 0-35 to 0-17, a scoreline which represented their biggest defeat since 1954.
While the league is not always an accurate guide of how the rest of the year will play out, it certainly showed the Cats will have a fight on their hands to prevail in their province this year.
Galway and Kilkenny are the powerhouses in Leinster and it's likely they will meet again further down the line.
The chance to test themselves again could be welcome and Deegan knows the pain from that league loss is still with them, feeling a reaction has come since.
"The players were disappointed with the performance. I think we've picked things up since then and a good response against Tipp afterwards," he said.
"You can use it [the heavy defeat] as motivation. I thought we upped our performance against Tipp and played well and we're probably unlucky to not win it in the end.
"We'll be looking at the first game and then we'll be taking a game-by-game after that.
"Galway obviously had a really strong league. Dublin and Wexford are going really well as well.
"Offaly and Kildare are also really performing well, so it's going to be really competitive and we have to really kind of focus in on each game."
Kilkenny won a sixth Leinster title last year and were beaten by just two points by eventual winners Tipperary in the All-Ireland semi-finals.
'Transition period’ has been a term associated with the county in recent years after some turnover in their panel, but Deegan is unsure if that is the case.
"I don't know, that's been kind of booted around there for a while that we've been in transition," he said, speaking at the launch of the Centra GAA Sharpshooter Competition in partnership with Patrick Horgan.
"We're focused on the first round Saturday and we're really looking forward to it.
"The mood is good. There's still plenty of good hurlers there. You still have TJ [Reid] obviously, the mainstay there, you have Rory Garrett coming through from the Under-20s.
"You still have Mikey Butler, Mikey Carey, Eoin Cody. There's still some very good hurlers there, so it's a positive mood in there at the moment.
"There's always that expectation when you are Kilkenny. People want us to win and there's always that outside pressure coming in.
"I know we have the belief that we're good enough to compete. I know the last couple of years have been disappointing."
Watch a Munster Hurling Championship double-header, Clare v Waterford (2pm) and Tipperary v Cork (4pm), on Sunday from 1.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app and listen to Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
Watch The Sunday Game from 9.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on all matches on the RTÉ News app and on rte.ie/sport. Listen to Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
