Kilkenny driven by climb up medal table mountain
I know a Sligo native who finds Kilkenny’s way with hurling success perplexing and even at times an irritation.
He lived and worked in the city, much enjoying the spell. The locals were agreeable and he married a Ballyhale woman, an out-and-out fanatic. But never has he understood the traits that seem, from outside, nigh on blasé.
To win just once, as the song has it. A Connacht song.
Kilkenny co-ordinates swing between tick familiar and tock notorious. There is the post-final rush so as to beat the traffic. There leans Bill Hennessy in 1995, stowing NHL trophy in boot of car.
There was John Power’s summation — “another bale on the trailer” — following triumph in 2002.
Are such moments culpable nonchalance? Not if you press the tradition.
Tony O’Malley, the Callan-born painter, recalled the 1931 All Ireland final: “Lowry Meagher in the parade was trailing his hurley, really dragging it along the ground, with a cap on. How he hurled later on! It was the performance itself that mattered not the preliminaries.”
How strongly could visible aftermath matter in this tradition?
Kilkenny-ness was most perfectly caught by Keith Duggan, he with a Donegal eye and Ireland’s finest writer. Musing in 2007, Duggan wrote: “Theirs is a private joy: you either understand them or you don’t.”
Natives tend to be guarded, negative, pessimistic. The Kilkenny way is playing it down, keeping going, not getting carried away. Character is more important than personality. Rain is only ever a field off.
Sometimes the negativity drives me cracked but it has clear value when a county typically hurls as favourite. Kilkenny folk, with fell exceptions such as 1999, tend not to get ahead of themselves.
What drives the players, though? What drives the current crew, year on silver year? Why are they not sated?
Let me anecdote. Last spring, someone approached a panellist about getting a youngster’s hurl signed. Few enough candidates were available, same evening.
Back he arrived with the hurley. “Sorry not more of us are around,” he said. “But you have 54 All-Ireland medals on it, all the same…”
The comment involved no grandstanding or hubris or smugness. Not in the slightest. All it indicated was a reigning dynamic, level and intent.
These last seasons, Kilkenny hurling has contained smart and burningly ambitious men. 2015’s squad is no different. The view from the top of the mountain that was 2008’s three-in-a-row insisted there was fresh history to be made. These men clocked the possibilities.
This vision, plus a desire to keep Tipperary down that mountain, drove them and drives them. The most extraordinary aspect of the Cody comet, 20 years down the line, will be what transpired from 2011 onwards. It should not have been possible.
Insatiable motivation? One name signed on that youngster’s hurl means but two medals as a non-playing sub. This decade’s hurlers know every Celtic Cross held like a multiplication table. The hunt has been led by figures such as Jackie Tyrrell and is central to why they keep on keeping on.
There are occasional hints in public. Interviewed this summer by RTÉ, Paul Murphy emphasised his good fortune as a three time All-Ireland winner. Same time, as likewise emphasised, Murphy wants to retire with more than three, having seen friends depart with eight and nine and ten All-Irelands.
Those marquee retirements were viewed, outside the loop, as an end of era sign-off. Inside the loop, silently and without fuss, opportunity was discerned.
2015 could show those left in stripes were not add-ons for legends. Those left remain immensely proud to have had such mighty colleagues. Same time, others could now become stars in their own right. You burn stubble, so that wind can shake new barley.
Richie Hogan, professing admiration for handballer Paul Brady, highlighted Brady’s longevity in the game. This emphasis was a proxy statement of Hogan’s own ambitions. He values the long haul.
Triumph in nine days’ time would give Richie Hogan seven Celtic Crosses at 27. TJ Reid would have seven at 28. Henry Shefflin won his seventh Celtic Cross in 2009, when he was 30. Those bare facts are a seduction of sorts.
Granted, Hogan was a non-playing sub in 2007 and 2008. Reid was a non-playing sub in 2007. But remark the nub. Certain records, previously considered as inaccessible as Patagonia, lie within reach. Both Hogan and Reid will hope to hurl another five or six seasons, hoping to harvest another three or four Celtic Crosses.
This harvest will hardly occur. Odds are sharp against, all told. Galway may well win in nine days’ time and Kilkenny might not take another senior title for yonks.
Yet the hope is firm pragmatic rather than soapy wishful. And such hope pushes the engine to maximum power.
Consider a younger figure. Triumph on September 6 would give Cillian Buckley three Celtic Crosses, as a starter, at 23. Henry Shefflin had three Celtic Crosses, as a starter, at 24.
Buckley’s athleticism and dedication could mean another ten seasons with the stripy men. Much wants more, no matter what the feast before. And much is never as ravenous as when more prospects uniqueness.
Truth told? Internal competition about that medal table has become as dynamic a facet as external competition with other counties. Richie Hogan, in best sense, wants to best Henry Shefflin.
People, including Sligo natives, might be perplexed by the Kilkenny way, inside and outside the camp. Those feelings are entirely understandable. I understand them. This column, an attempt at honesty, will get taken as part of the syndrome.
Such responses are beside the point. Like or dislike, approve or disapprove, the joy of this private striving is what fuels the Kilkenny engine.
They still parade as Lowry Meagher did. Not the before and not the afters: now.
