Cody refuses to be drawn on departures of Carter, McEvoy

BRIAN CODY is maintaining a dignified silence on the departure of Charlie Carter and Brian McEvoy from the Kilkenny hurling panel. He has refused to make any comment at all so far on the controversy, either locally or nationally and has not indicated if he will respond.

However, sources close to the management team of Cody, Noel Skehan and Johnny Walsh confirmed that the trio are not unduly worried by the developments and that they view media comments of a ‘deep crisis’ in the camp as fanciful.

They will not have been surprised by the decision of Carter to opt out, but may have been taken unawares by McEvoy’s retirement. However, it’s fair to assume that they would have been surprised at the very least that neither player communicated his decision directly to Cody.

Carter made his announcement on Radio Kilkenny and notified County Secretary Pat Dunphy early on Tuesday. The news was communicated to Cody before McEvoy made his call to Dunphy later in the afternoon.

The squad had trained on Monday night and won’t come together again until next Monday, because of county championship games at the weekend.

Cody has never shirked difficult decisions, whether it related to issues like not bringing Denis Byrne back onto the panel early last year or, more recently, leaving Philip Larkin out of the team for the championship against Dublin. Larkin starred in the All-Ireland final last year, but his loss of pace was shown up in the League final.

And, the Kilkenny manager shrugged off the mini-controversy before the second last round of the League against Cork, when it was reported that Carter was threatening to walk away from the team. At the media conference before the final, Cody rejected media labelling of him as “ruthless,” saying that it was a simple word “to bandy about.”

“We just pick the team as we see it. Tensions come and go. I was a player myself and a sub myself. I know what it’s like not to play,’’ he said.