Cody: the appetite is back

LISTENING to Brian Cody discuss his approach to management, it's easy to believe it's not as onerous a role as generally believed responsible yes, but not that difficult.

The reality, of course, is quite different. Listen on and you will hear him admit that Kilkenny's approach to the Guinness All-Ireland semi-final last year was wrong and that it cost them the match. But they got it right this year and it's why they are so many people's favourites to triumph in this final.

"Every day you go out, you try and learn something and improve. The fellow who has this game cracked hasn't been born. It's a learning process the whole way through. You make decisions which go in your favour sometimes, other times they don't.

"In this game, all you can do is what you honestly believe is right and keep doing it. You pick players that you can have total confidence and trust in and we have those players. And we have a good spirit going. That's all we try and promote all the time.''

Without dwelling too much on their defeat in last year's semi-final, he suggests that it was the result of their not responding properly to the challenge in a way that a team has to respond if they want to win the big matches in Croke Park!

"I'd say that mentally we were not as prepared as we should have been. My responsibility is for the fire in the team and their spirit in any given day. And that wasn't strong enough in the semi-final last year. When you win an All-Ireland final, focus tends to drift away a bit and that understandable."

Getting a good run in this year's National League and winning the final was also a considerable help. Apart from restoring confidence, it provided valuable experience for a number of players whom Cody and co-selectors Johnny Walsh and Noel Skehan felt might have a chance of making the team for the championship.

They met Clare in Ennis a week after they had lost to Galway and it was a game in which they were highly motivated.

"Possibly we put more preparations into the League than they did. We had a quite a few inexperienced younger fellows playing that day who were hugely anxious to impress. We were very anxious to do well in that game and it helped to bring our team on a lot.''

DJ Carey made a notable comeback for the semi-final, Charlie Carter has been unable to command a regular place and John Power, for so long the team's established centre-forward, hasn't figured in the campaign yet.

In Carey's case, the manager says that it was easy for him to come back and it was never a problem for the management in picking him.

"Much was made about the last day and his comeback and the pressure on him. I don't think there was any real pressure on DJ, in the sense that he didn't have anything to prove to anyone in the hurling world whatsoever. And I don't think he ever will. He has proved it countless times over the last 14 years or so. When the time comes his epitaph will be written and he will go down as one of the great players, no matter what way it turns out.

"The one strength he had coming back was that he wasn't a player saying 'give me the ball and I'll score for you.' He was coming back and saying 'I'll work like a savage and give it to you and you can score.' He is a team player, always has been and always will be. To me that's his greatest strength, not his hurling skills the fact that he is a genuine team player.''

He isn't in the least surprised to see Clare contesting the final, agreeing that they confirmed their potential in the Munster championship game with Tipperary.

"Obviously, they wouldn't have chosen to lose the game and come along this way, but it gave them the opportunity to look at their team and get it settled,'' he said. And, while agreeing that Kilkenny's semi-final with Tipp produced a marvellous game, it shouldn't cloud the fact that Clare gave an impressive display against Waterford.

"They gave them a six points lead and came back strongly. People might say that Waterford collapsed, but it was more a case of Clare putting the shutters up and stamping their authority on the game.

"We had six weeks of a gap (after beating Wexford in the Leinster final) and while there has been a lot of negative talk about the effect this might have had on other teams, our players were given the chance of getting in a lot of training. Otherwise they could have been drifting from match to match. We got a hell of a lot of work done and the lads also got away to play a couple of club matches, which they like to do and which is important for them as well. The mix was okay for us as it turned out.''

While expressing his admiration for the Clare backs, he says he is confident that their own forwards will play their normal game. Responding to conjecture about the facility of the Clare defence to suck forwards into the middle, his answer was that Kilkenny will do what they always tend to do which is to concentrate on their own game.

"Their defence is hailed as one of the great defences of all time and they are entitled to be rated like that as a unit and certainly individually. They are a team that epitomises what leadership on the field is all about. And the players who were great when they won a few years back are all at a wonderful age, close to 30, in their prime. Their forwards are probably better now than they were then. Tony Griffin has come in and done well. He looks an outstanding player, along with Tony Carmody. And I haven't even mentioned Colin Lynch.''