No excuses from candid Cody
Sunday after Sunday, they have walked reluctantly into the media centre under the Hogan Stand and talked about how there are no excuses for a loss before, inevitably, the first quibble escapes their lips.
It is human nature.
It may be a referee’s decision or the absence of key players through injury or suspension. It may even be a gripe over the scheduling or the venue itself. You name it, losing managers – and players – usually find themselves reaching for it. Eventually.
Not Brian Cody.
The Kilkenny manager is less familiar with the pangs of defeat than perhaps any other in the history of hurling yet none have handled its demands more eloquently and with less fuss. Cody never reaches for the easy out.
Even the ambush theory is dismissed.
“I’m not sure about the ‘surprised’ bit. I haven’t a different story to what I had before the game. I said they were capable of beating us and we were capable of beating them on different days, whatever way the game works out. They obviously got on top of the game very, very early and they were by far the better team and that’s the way it works: the better team always wins on the day.”
Cody’s mantra has never changed, win or lose.
For years he has been finding fault with the notion that the Leinster Championship is some sort of a moribund concept. For eight years, he had been beating a lonely drum in that regard but he knew that this day would always come.
“That’s sport essentially,” he said. “It’s an on-the-day thing. Nobody has a monopoly on anything in sport. Certainly, we never considered we had. Obviously they played with a great intensity, with a great everything about their game. They dominated the game.
“We put in a big effort in the second half, we didn’t lie down or accept it. We were in a really tough position at half-time. The response of the players in the second-half was as genuine, honest as ever, so that’s the game. The winners were very, very emphatic.”
There were any number of surprising aspects to this game. Tommy Walsh fresh-airing a sideline cut was one. Henry Shefflin sending a pair of straightforward frees wide was another. Most shocking of all was the realisation that Kilkenny were simply outfought.
“I have often sat here and people have talked to me about the intensity. Intensity is something that is part and parcel of sport and part and parcel of hurling and if we weren’t prepared for that intensity we shouldn’t have been around the place at all. We didn’t play well in the first half.
“It wasn’t that we didn’t have an answer for the intensity. They dominated and that’s sport. There are no excuses. There is no question about not being prepared for it. We expected and anticipated a phenomenal challenge from Galway. We got that challenge and they were better than us.”
It’s around this point in press conferences that the formality tends to dissipate and the innermost thoughts begin to emerge. When the ‘what ifs’ tend to appear.
Cody could have bitten. Sure, wasn’t he without giants like Michael Fennelly and JJ Delaney? Players with 14 Leinster titles and eleven All-Irelands between them. Not to mention seven All Stars. Wouldn’t they have made a significant difference? He was having none of it.
“It may or may not be significant. We’ve never used being short any players ever as a reason for winning or losing. Everybody would like always to have their full panel available but that doesn’t come into it. We had 15 players ready to start and 15 players ready to come in.”
We move on and the straight talking continues.
“We’re still there,” he said at one point and it’s worth noting that, for all the drama and the talk of history at Croke Park yesterday, Kilkenny still find themselves with an All-Ireland quarter-final to plan for.
After all, it’s only five years since a Leinster title parked a team at the very same juncture of the championship and Kilkenny went on to claim the Liam MacCarthy. The air of invincibility has been lost. The menace remains.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
