Big pussycat may come back to bite Wexford

In various conversations with the three Kilkenny Sunday Game analysts — Henry Shefflin, Jackie Tyrell and Eddie Brennan — over the last couple of months, you could almost sense the manic, primal Kilkennyesque ferocity in them anytime Wexford and June 10 was mentioned, writes Anthony Daly.

Without having to ask any of them if they’d like to be playing this evening, I’d say if Brian Cody offered them a jersey, they’d all suspend their retirements for a couple of hours to take up arms.

One of them said to me recently that he thought if Cody never won another match, he wouldn’t care as long as he won this one. Cody and the whole of Kilkenny never like losing, especially in Nowlan Park, but the manner of the defeat to Wexford in the league quarter-final in April left a bitter aftertaste. Kilkenny felt they were bullied, that Wexford sewed it in to them.