Every game has a life of its own

You don’t remember the game, so don’t pretend you do.

It was another scalp as Kilkenny trundled to four All-Irelands in-a-row, a stat that doesn’t leap at you off the page now.

But Martin Fogarty remembers it.

“We won the All-Ireland in 2006,” says the Kilkenny selector.

“But we had a savage match with Offaly in the first round that year. It was the same then, people saying that all we had to do was go along and turn up for the win.

“But we prepared hugely for the game, we treated Offaly with huge respect – and anyone at that game would tell you that that game was just savage combat. If we had been even slightly off the boil that day we’d have lost, and we wouldn’t have won subsequent All-Irelands.

“People who are involved are aware of that – that if you’re not at your absolute best and the other side are up for it, then you will be beaten, not that you could be beaten.”

Still, the dynamic has been different this year. Galway destroyed them in the Leinster final. How has that affected their approach since then?

“It’s in the past, but every game takes on a life of its own. Playing well today doesn’t mean you’ll play well the next day – that all depends on how the opposition are going, how their form is.

“Certainly we were disappointed to lose to Galway. Of course we were. We went out — as we thought – ready for the match, but credit to Galway, they were superior to us on the day and deservedly won the game.

“What could we do only lick our wounds, go back and get ready for the next day? And lucky enough for us there was a next day. We took Limerick as seriously as you could take any team, and they put huge pressure on us in Thurles.

“I don’t know if you would say we were lucky... lucky mightn’t be the right way to put it, but we were lucky to come out of that game with a win. Limerick could have beaten us, simple as that.”

Fogarty doesn’t take the last few years for granted. Nobody in the Kilkenny set-up does.

“Every day you get up, every day you go into training, you realise how privileged you are to be involved with Kilkenny, just as other mentors feel about their teams.

“It goes both ways – the players are hugely privileged to be involved on a county panel. Over the years the players we’ve had on our panel have been hugely privileged to be involved not just with a county team but one that’s had more than its fair share of success.

“What makes it enjoyable for us as mentors is that the players realise that – that they’re lucky to be in there. It’s never a sacrifice – you never hear a Kilkenny player say it’s a sacrifice. It’s a privilege to be involved, and for us to be involved as mentors. When players and management realise that, you’re not guaranteed success but you’re putting yourself in the position to try to get some.

“The day you take that for granted, then that’s the day you should be gone. There are hundreds of players in every county who’d give their left arm to be involved in the county team. It takes huge work to win anything and, let’s call it, you have to be either lucky or get the breaks, because every team is doing the same as you.”

The sweeping generalisation, of course, was that Kilkenny would still make it to the All-Ireland. Loose talk, says Fogarty.

“I won’t say it annoys us. It’s a load of rubbish. We’ve been blessed to get to so many All-Irelands, and to win them, but you could be knocked out any year very easily.

“We treated Limerick with huge respect, because they were very unlucky not to beat a very good Dublin team last year in the championship. They got hit for three goals but they got it back within a score, while Dublin came within a puck of the ball of an All-Ireland final.

“We wouldn’t pay much attention to what people are saying about us – lads that are playing the game, lads that are following the game, they know that any of the teams involved can knock you out on any given day.”

And the team they’ve been involved with for the last three years...

“In one sense it doesn’t matter what Tipperary have done. Tipperary are Tipperary and they’re always going to be a force to reckoned with. They’re serious contenders every year, and they’ve had a very good team the last few years.

“The same goes for Galway, who have been contenders for years; the fact that they haven’t won the All-Ireland is irrelevant. The fact is that they can come out on any given day and do to any team what they did to us the day of the Leinster final.

“Cork the same. They could have won last Sunday [against Galway] – the opportunities were there.”

The passion continues, then. The flame still burns.

“If it doesn’t then you’ve no business being involved.

” If we as management dropped our interest or our workrate by one per cent at any given time with training or looking at players who aren’t on the panel, then we don’t deserve to be involved.

“It’s the same for a player – if he’s represented the county on one occasion or 100 times, if he drops his desire by one per cent he doesn’t deserve to be involved.”