Cody’s never ending story has another chapter
Alright, enough’s enough. Leave it so, lads. Mission accomplished. After four All-Ireland titles in five years, Kilkenny have, somehow, hunkered themselves deep in grass longer than Mourinho would graze Messi in.
Wear and tear. Miles on the clock. These days Kilkenny fans sound like a bargain hunter back from a good test drive with a forced frown.
One league stumble in Salthill has persuaded the Mayan to revise by a year their gloomiest predictions.
All of which allows Kilkenny amble into a league final tomorrow cast as extras in Dublin’s date with destiny, as we wonder if Daly’s men are ready to take the next step.
But what’s Cody’s story? He is one more game of hurling away from being satisfied. And then another one.
The sport’s most extraordinary figure will want to win this one as much as any of the other 22 national titles he has claimed as player or manager. And he’ll have a story to tell to make sure that happens.
The story will have been told on Thursday evening. The lads will have trained harder than they might if this was June. They’ll have showered and put on street clothes. Someone will have made tea. They will have sat around in the Nowlan Park meeting room, at ease with each other, but a bit nervous all the same. Big hands fidgeting. You don’t want to the first one put on the spot.
Cody might start with his own story or he might not. But it will be told at some stage. And you’ll never have heard it before. After all the years. To some people, the story might not mean very much. Remember the time… Never forget… That won’t happen again… But these lads will know what it means. Everything.
Brian Phelan — still hurling well at midfield for Clara — was in the room for a while and heard some of the stories. “I think Brian Cody’s greatest asset as a manager is his motivational skill. He has a new idea for a speech before every big game. Another story. Those meetings were passionate, intense but very controlled. He just knows how to get into guys’ heads and he is always able to remind players about the last time they faced an opponent.”
And that’s when the lads will tell their own stories.
Ever wonder why you can’t coax much out of a Kilkenny player before or after a game?
“Ah sure, I got the few breaks, thank God.” They have it down since First Communion. “Ah sure I was lucky enough that Fr Kennedy went over to the side aisle first.”
No wonder. They are saving all the serious analysis for Cody on the Thursday.
Phelan remembers how JJ Delaney got put on the spot the Thursday before he faced Eugene Cloonan for a second time, having been bullied the time before.
“And what, JJ, are you going to do about that on Sunday?” (Cody’s punctuation may well have been more colourful.) And JJ said what he was going to do about it, in front of all the lads. And in saying it he was half way to doing it. Sometimes it’s just raw emotion he’s after. One time, with Waterford on the horizon, Walter Burke of Mullinavat was asked about a scurrilous banner on the Deise side of the border. An impassioned Walter made it clear he couldn’t face home if they were beaten on the Sunday.
People react differently in the 30 second spotlight. DJ was confident, Shefflin is reserved but impeccable in the words chosen. Noel Hickey — calm but firm — a promise whispering like a breeze through a forest of oaks. There. Is. No. Way. Eoin Kelly. Is. Going. To. Round. Me. And. Score. A. Goal. On. Sunday. Said and meant.
Cody will throw it around like they relaxed the handpass rule again. Sparking discussions. The master facilitator. “What do you think Tommy?” “Do you agree with that Richie?”
“He just draws you out,” says Phelan. “And you tend to get very passionate, emotional nearly. And he puts a couple of things in your head, that might come to you again when you’re driving home or when you’re shaving the next morning. What are you going to do if you miss your first ball? What are you going to do with your second ball?”
Whatever things they are, they have invariably been the right things. Dublin tomorrow? That’s another story.
“GOOD evening. The game you are about to see is the most stupid, appalling, disgusting and disgraceful exhibition of football, possibly in the history of the game.”
Long before Wednesday’s mostly-pitiful Champions League semi-final first leg had finished, Twitter users were parroting David Coleman’s famous hand-wringing introduction to highlights of the 1962 Battle of Santiago.
Then Italy and Chile inflicted a series of potentially lethal kicks and punches on the sport’s reputation. That Real Madrid and Barcelona almost managed to replicate that mayhem without landing a single blow in anger didn’t make this spectacle any less repellent.
The posturing, feigning, diving and vitriol that comprised the first 45 minutes had to be seen to be believed.
If Real’s Director General Jorge Valdano thought the 2005 all-English semi-final was “shit on a stick”, he should avoid stirring his tea with this one.
In fairness, we should acknowledge the outstanding feature of that wretched first half; Barcelona’s peerless pressing game. They consistently hunted in packs of threes and fours to hound and harass the man in possession; in possession that is of a whistle, notebook and red and yellow cards.
The saving grace was Messi’s late magic but more so that Jose Mourinho — whose script, you can sure, detailed to the letter that toxic first hour — had to skulk away beaten and disgraced.
If only it could have shut him up too.
THERE are those who would argue that no team has every truly earned a title unless they’ve done it the NBA way.
AC Milan, Liverpool, Kilkenny, Munster; whoever your favourites, they haven’t had to come through a gruelling play-off series to reach their promised land. Seven games home and away to find a winner. Excuses tend to wear thin. There are no surprises. All swings find their roundabout. The very opposite of Any Given Sunday.
But what about the drama so prized by fans of straight knockout? You should have been in San Antonio on Wednesday night when rookie Gary Neal knocked down a three-pointer at the buzzer to save the Spurs against the Memphis Grizzlies.
Tony Parker took over in overtime to bring it back to 3-2. Game six should be finished as you read this. A seventh, if it is needed, would be on tomorrow. I often think it would be great to have the system here. Seven episodes of Tipp-Kilkenny in a fortnight! Hey, if Fair City can do it. But then you consider the contempt generated by just three short order helpings of El Clasico. And then you imagine facing six more outings — three, more likely — of United-Schalke. And you think two legs good. Seven legs bad. One leg better.
THE ACCUSED: Arsene Wenger
THE RAP: Wrecking tomorrow’s title showdown through sheer negligence and myopia.
LESSER CHARGE: Fidgeting on the sideline. First sign of lunacy it seems.
WITNESSES FOR THE PROSECUTION: Can messrs Eboue, Denilson, Squillaci and Almunia please stand?
THE DEFENCE: Ball-watching by all accounts. But there was Vermaelen’s injury.
ANYTHING FURTHER? In fairness, when Fergie fidgets, he’s “kicking every ball.”
VERDICT: Sentenced to a summer spending top dollar in the company of a new number two.
Appear before the court again next spring.
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