The afternoon it all began for Brian Cody

It was a debutants’ ball of a day, an occasion on which a host of the biggest names of the next decade stepped forward into a new version of themselves.

There was a first start in the national adult arena for a big redhaired lump of a lad from Ballyhale. There was the curious sight of the Cork goal no longer manned by the familiar frame of Ger Cunningham but rather by a youngster from Cloyne who’d featured in a few league matches over the previous two seasons.