Cody: grit and guts gave us the edge

AND so, with the last league game of the season, the hurling season really explodes into life.

A damp squib was what was being predicted for Croke Park yesterday, a lifeless pre-championship workout in front of a small crowd cowering for shelter from the expected broken showers in the cavernous new stadium, between two sides with bigger things on their minds.

Tipperary face Clare in two week’s time in the Munster championship. As for Kilkenny, well they won this last year, didn’t they?

Surely the retention of their championship crown would loom larger on their minds. The small crowd bit held true, and never can 17,153 people gathered in one spot have looked so insignificant.

“Bank Holiday weekend in Dublin? You’d probably have got twenty or thirty thousand down the country,” reckoned winning Kilkenny captain Charlie Carter.

But as for everything else, oh no. The sun shone bright, two superb sides came to play, and all hell broke loose.

Two of the meanest defences in the country, but on show also was some of the best attacking talent in the business. DJ Carey, Tommy Dunne, Henry Shefflin, Eoin Kelly, Eddie Brennan, Lar Corbett, Martin Comerford, John Carroll and in the end, with possibly the most crucial contribution of all, Charlie Carter.

Ten goals we had, five apiece, but it could easily have been seven or eight each when the truly outstanding saves are reckoned into the equation. Then throw in the fact of the lead changing twice in the dying minutes.

“If ye’re able to put a description on that tomorrow, fair play to ye, because I certainly can’t,” was Kilkenny manager Brian Cody’s summation of an incredible 70-plus minutes of hurling.

“At half-time, I would say Tipperary were expected to win the game. Certainly with 20 minutes remaining, quarter of an hour. It’s a tribute to the lads. All I can say is our players just fought and fought. It wasn’t inspiration that won it for them, it wasn’t the changes, it wasn’t anything but a bit of guts, guts and grit, grit and guts, then more guts again.

“Just honesty and determination, a refusal to give in. That will get you back into contention but it’s not always enough to get you the win. Today it was.”

DJ Carey has played in more than his fair share of big games and he too was in raptures, did his best to try and encapsulate a game that first swung one way, then the other.

“Amazing to watch, I’m sure, but it was an amazing game to play in as well. I thought we played well for the first 15 or 20 minutes, then Tipp took over, started getting the goals. I can’t remember the timing but one was close to half-time, and they were looking good.

“They came out hurling well in the second half, went seven or eight points up; we got a goal, they went down and got another, and I thought it was all over then. But I suppose it was one of those games where you put down your head, nothing to lose, go for goals.”

DJ had started this game as captain, leading Kilkenny in the pre-match parade behind the Artane Boys Band, but Charlie it was who ended up accepting the cup, and fully earned was that right.

Introduced with just 14 minutes to go, Tipp on a roll, his first two shots resulted in two goals, started Kilkenny on the long road back.

“You’d always be anxious to get on, there isn’t a whole lot you can do from the stands! Ah sure I’d love to have started, but it’s history now, got on and got the,” and here he paused, about to say “goals”, but thought better.

“I heard DJ is claiming one of them but sure if he wants it, he can have it, we won’t fight over that one today anyway.

“Nice to get on the scoresheet, but it’s more important that we won. The cup is going back to Kilkenny.”

The cup yes, but not all the glory. After a rip-roaring contest, Tipperary surely deserve a share of that.