Manner of winning ‘will make Cats even better’

THE manner in which Kilkenny secured their 28th All-Ireland title, with more graft than craft, bodes well for a team already knocking on the door marked legendary.

That’s the view of Peter Barry, the vital cog in Kilkenny’s most impressive unit this season, their half-back line.

Barry said Sunday’s game had to be ground from the earth rather than won by spectacular hurling and that, in time, the lesson learned may make Kilkenny even better.

“I never thought we were going to walk away with this final, as some people had said.

“We had to dig the result out and I think that is a great sign for this team. Sometimes, it is all fluency and flying around the place. This one needed to be dug out of a hole. It was one that had to be fought for and that’s what we did. It was all battle, fighting and scraping.”

Barry feels the Cats develop their immense appetite on those many nights spent together on James Park.

“This is a big part of this team, in training a lot of it is tackling and fighting for the ball. Everything is pushed to a phenomenal degree at our training sessions, your tongue is hanging out for the majority of time at the training session.”

Barry also believes that a big part of Kilkenny’s success is down to their love affair with the game of hurling. “To win the double-double is amazing. We wouldn’t have thought about it setting out last year and then suddenly, we found ourselves in a league final again.

“But this team is about winning games and getting as far as we can while we enjoy it. And that is seen in the lads, they are not great with the media or anything like that. It is all hurling, it is all about going out training and hurling. That is all they want to do and that is reflected in the way we ground out that win against Cork.”

Of course, keeping a lid on the hype is now important. No sooner had Pat O’Connor blown his whistle than talk among supporters began of a three-in-a-row. Barry and his team-mates are closing their ears to such hype.

“To achieve a double-double was wonderful and I suppose now all the talk will be of a three-in-a-row. We had a good chat among ourselves after the game, and there was no three-in-a-row mentioned there, it was just go out next year and see what happens.”

Even though this was his third All-Ireland medal, Barry felt like it was his first, so sweet was the victory.

“This is a probably sweeter than last year, it was a much harder game and there was a lot of question marks. We were favourites in every game and expected to do this double-double, especially after coming back in the league final. There was pressure on us. But we delivered under that pressure.”