Eimear Ryan: Cody and Kiely couldn't be more different in style

DIFFERENT BUT EFFECTIVE: Kilkenny manager Brian Cody and Limerick manager John Kiely shake hands. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

Your correspondent is in New York for the month of July, aka the business end of championship, and so has been relying on GAA Go for access to matches. It’s a pretty good service, with two fatal flaws: 1, it doesn’t include camogie; and 2, it’s expensive. 

I bought a package including the All-Ireland semi-finals and final for $39, but last weekend’s Sunday Game wasn’t included, so I had to shell out $12 for the privilege. I regret nothing – you have to keep an eye on what The Lads are saying, and it was great to see Brendan Maher’s assured debut in what is hopefully a long career of punditry to come.

Even taking into account the expense, the streaming service is an improvement on the last time I was in New York for an All-Ireland final, in September of 2009. That day, I paid $20 to get into an Irish bar on the Lower East Side at 10am in the morning, the only Tipp fan in a room full of black and amber jerseys. I thought we had it won, for a minute.

While watching both semi-finals, a thought struck: it’s hard not to think of managers as father figures. This is in part because they’re overwhelmingly male (in a long camogie career, across many different grades and competitions, I’ve only ever had two female managers). But it’s also because the job of manager is in some ways inherently parental. 

You are the custodian of your players’ dreams and ambitions. Your job is to generate a sense of brotherhood or sisterhood amongst your charges. You have to guide them on the path: positively reinforcing when they do well, dishing out tough love when they’re not hitting the mark, and finally, picking them up when they’re down.

In Kiely and Cody, it’s hard to imagine two more differing parental styles. Cody is withholding dad: gruff, unsparing, someone who keeps you chasing an approval that may never be conferred. An old-fashioned midlands dad; a man of few words. 

When you think of the transcendent talent that has passed through his dressing-room over the course of 24 years and 11 All-Irelands – DJ, TJ, Henry, Eddie, Richie, and so many more – you have to wonder if their glorious deeds were met with much more than a Farmer Hoggett-like ‘that’ll do’ in the dressing-room afterwards. Maybe a firm backslap, if you were lucky.

Kiely, meanwhile, is affirming dad: someone for whom his players feel respect but also warmth; who doles out hugs and whose eyes are wide with sincerity when he talks about the qualities in his squad; who has created a winning formula in large part by making the process enjoyable for everyone. I am sure Cody would say that winning is enjoyable. Touché.

This is maybe not the All-Ireland matchup we predicted, but it is the one we deserve: the two most dominant hurling cultures and the two most successful managers of the 21st century coming head to head. Both teams love playing in Croke Park and have ample experience there. Both know how to win, clearly – but more to the point, both know how to grind out a result. 

Let us flash back, if you will, to 22-year-old me in that LES bar one long-ago Sunday morning, stifling tears as the Kilkenny fans around me ordered celebratory fry-ups. Small things broke Kilkenny’s way that day, but the crucial thing is that Cody’s Kilkenny knows how to capitalise on every advantage that comes along: it’s how they prevail in tight clashes. 

Any time Tipp subsequently beat Kilkenny in a final, they beat them well. One does not simply edge out Kilkenny by a point or two; you beat them soundly or you don’t beat them at all.

For all the differences in managerial approach, this ability to close out tight matches is something that both finalists share. As Liam Sheedy pointed out on that twelve-dollar episode of The Sunday Game: ‘A lot of teams can get [Limerick] to the edge but they can’t quite get them over.’ 

Even as Galway tirelessly worked their way back into the game on Sunday, you felt that Limerick would hold the line. But of course, the only team to beat Limerick at knockout stage in the last five seasons is Kilkenny.

This enticing final pairing closes out a season that has been, while spectacular and rewarding for the viewer in so many ways, also a reminder of the humanity of our players. I’m old enough to remember punters fretting that every match would end with a thirty-plus point scoreline; that points were in fact too easy to score now; that maybe we should look into making sliotars heavier, or ban players from scoring from their own half.

This year has been different. We’re not used to goalies fumbling, or freetakers faltering, or monster wide counts, or teams going in at half-time with a scoreline in the single digits. This is not a criticism; anyone who has played the game knows what it’s like to have off-days, to fail to execute in a match what you’ve done hundreds of times in training. 

But it is a timely reminder that our players are amateurs and, with the new round robin format, probably more susceptible to burnout than ever. If we were worried about squadrons of hurling automatons, this season has shown that our players are all too human.

This fallibility, however, makes the magic moments all the more special. 

Whether it was Aaron Gillane’s outrageous touch; Brian Concannon channelling Gillane at the other end with an in-around-the-back goal; Conor Whelan’s late point from the sideline after a stinging bounce pass from the excellent Tom Monaghan; TJ Reid plucking balls and laying it off, his brilliance showing no signs of fading; or David Reidy, the stealth sub, finding acres of space for crucial points – we’re lucky to witness it all.