Brennan satisfied to have played his part

BY general consensus he was man-of-the-match in Sunday’s All-Ireland final, inspiring Kilkenny’s treble success with those two early goals and turning in a superb display.

Insisting that the team was “never about individuals,” Eddie Brennan agreed that manager Brian Cody was fully deserving of the accolade from the RTÉ ‘Sunday Game’ panel.

“Brian put in a lot of hours training as well and he was very much entitled to it as any of us. Individual awards don’t come into it. Some lads will get the breaks and other lads won’t. I got two breaks. Eoin Larkin put that ball on a plate for me and Taggy (Aidan Fogarty) the same. You just do your bit of the team. You are one of 33 or 34 just one cog in the wheel. We all make it go round.’’

Winning special acclaim for his second goal — when he scored with a powerful ground shot after ‘keeper Clinton Hennessy saved brilliantly from Fogarty — he said that it was what “he is there” to do.

“It’s the one thing you’d always be doing in training — following up. If you are hunting in packs, that’s what happens. I thought Martin Comerford was like a top-class international soccer player, just running the show from centre-forward.

“He was coming through that time, it was just that the ball came at my angle. It could just easily have gone the other side to Eoin Larkin. You just to get into position and hope the chance might come your way.’’

He admitted that the manner of victory surprised him

“We could never have envisaged turning on a performance like that in the first half. If someone had told us we’d have won it by a point or two, no problem we’d have taken that. But to come out and just get the breaks like we did in the first half. I have never seen anything like the work-rate in the backs. Michael Kavanagh was phenomenal and, for a so-called weak full-back line, they did fairly well.

“We talk about Tommy (Walsh) and JJ (Delaney) in the backs, but lads like PJ Delaney, John Dalton, John Tennyson and James Ryall, any one of them could slot into any of the positions Sunday without even breaking stride. That’s what keeps the team ticking.’’

Brennan says that in time it will be nice to look back on games like Sunday’s final and feel “he did his bit.” But it hasn’t always been that satisfying.

“I look back and say to the lads there were times there when I was carried through All-Irelands, so I’m only too happy to help the other lads out. That’s what it is all about. I was taken off in 2002 to let John Power on, no problem. I was absolutely thrilled (for him). In 2003 I just wasn’t at the races, but on the day it was about the result and that’s the most important thing.

“Martin Comerford mightn’t have been massively happy with his own performance but I thought he was absolutely brilliant. I think Ken McGrath hit one ball out of his hands from open play and that just goes to show what Martin Comerford did. It was a big thing for us to stop him (McGrath) from hurling.’’

Brennan, a Portlaoise-based Garda, said that his heart “went out” to the Waterford players, agreeing that it will take them time to get over their defeat but believing that they are not finished as a team.

“People can pat them on the back and say ‘hard luck’ but it just won’t register. They’ll do whatever they have to do for the few days but it’s going to hurt them for a while. I don’t agree with the talk about this being an old Waterford team. There are one or two maybe over 30 but they have a lot of young lads breaking into the panel and De La Salle are after winning the colleges for the last two years. I wouldn’t be looking at it as a ‘bad’ future for Waterford. There is a good squad there and they will be back. They will learn a lot from that game.’’