Kilkenny ingrained in a culture of success

For years now, we’ve all been saying the same thing, probably more hoping as a wider hurling community, that the Kilkenny machine has to start grinding to a halt at some stage. We’ve been watching like hawks for signals; the retirement of so many big names, the lack of underage success, a suspect strength in depth, and the dearth of real quality forwards coming through.

Yet we’re all codding ourselves if we think the culture is going to change soon. It just won’t, especially while Brian Cody is around. And the culture defines everything with Kilkenny.

Only the anoraks and diehards outside Kilkenny would have known who Robert Lennon and James Maher were before yesterday. Both were in the top three for man-of-the-match. Maher got four points from play. Lennon cleaned out ‘Bonner’ Maher. Lennon stood into Kieran Joyce’s boots and more or less said to Tipp with their new, direct style, ‘No, yere not coming down the middle today, boys’. He fetched ball out of the sky for fun. It doesn’t matter who comes in; the culture is just continuous.