Cody refuses to push panic button after lacklustre display

YOU know it was a poor performance from Kilkenny and you know that Brian Cody certainly knows!

But you won't hear the Kilkenny manager speak critically of his team in public after they struggled to beat Limerick by five points in Sunday's Guinness All-Ireland hurling quarter-final.

At the same time, he conceded that a repeat of that form and they will be absent from the final for only the second time in eight years.

And the last time they failed to qualify was in 2001 when, as reigning champions, they were shocked by Galway in the semi-final! Obviously impressed by the Westerners' victory over Tipperary, he's predicting that it will be "a great semi-final" and one that will be tough to win.

"Galway have been making progress the whole year. Our big win over them last year is certainly going to be a big motivation for them,'' he commented. "But, it's not as if a team needs motivation when the prize is a place in the All-Ireland final.''

Cody said he never accepted the idea that Limerick were "weak," suggesting that they "could have won" all their games this year.

"They drew with Tipperary in the Munster championship and they almost came out on top in the replay. And, they probably would have beaten Galway in the qualifier series if TJ Ryan had made the most of the frees that came his way. I also remember that when they played Cork in last year's championship, they came very close to winning. It's not as if this Limerick team suddenly arrived. They had a massive preparation through their games in the qualifier system, compared to teams which did not go through that route. People who made little of them did an injustice to their team.''

The Limerick recovery clearly worried him. While he felt that his full-back line did well and that in Noel Hickey's absence, John Tennyson acquitted himself well in his first big test Cody pointed out that his team was "not firing on all cylinders" at this stage of the game.

"I thought we were doing okay in the first half,'' he added. "We appeared to be edging ahead until they pulled us back with two scores before half time. But for the next 15 minutes they ripped us apart. If you count those two late points before the break, they outscored us by eight points to one!''

When it was put to him that a lot of his 'big name' players did not respond to the strengthening Limerick challenge in the manner expected of them, Cody responded that the players perceived as such by the public "did not see themselves as big names. We see ourselves as a team. And, it was a good test of character from our team.

"D.J. (Carey) got a point and Henry (Shefflin) followed that with a superb point from a free on the wing. And the subs we brought on were decent. The likes of Eddie Brennan got on the ball and while he mightn't have scored, at that stage we needed to getting on the ball. We steadied it. We were in control.''

While he didn't see Galway's game, Cody rates them a "serious" team, "a handful" for any side. "It's like Clare. Before the championship they were being written off. Now, they are very serious contenders.''

Looking ahead to the semi-final on August 21, Cody accepts that his team needs to improve "an awful lot."

"We would see ourselves as an 'ordinary' team, contrary to what people would say. I have always said that every year there are about seven teams capable of winning the championship we are one of them. We did not get it as right as we wanted on Sunday.''