Cats will bounce back

KILKENNY secretary Ned Quinn has backed Brian Cody’s side to bounce back from Sunday’s Allianz League final defeat to Dublin and be a force in the championship.

The manner of the Croke Park defeat has many penning obituaries for Cody’s men but Quinn last night insisted that hurling in the county remains in good health despite this setback.

The GAA chief, one of the driving forces behind the revamp of Kilkenny hurling after a fallow spell in the nineties, revealed that ‘we never lost sight of the future’ despite the tremendous senior success of the last decade.

“We’re not headed back into the doldrums anyway, that’s for sure,’’ Quinn said last night.

“We were well beaten by a very good Dublin team and we’re making no excuses for that. But we would expect that when all our players are back and fit we’ll have a reasonable shot at this year’s championship.

“That’s not in any way to take away from Dublin’s superiority yesterday. They have made great progress over the last few years and this proves that if you put in the work at underage level you get the rewards at adult level, eventually.”

It’s not just Dublin either who have been catching up on Kilkenny — there are others, says Quinn.

“The same can be said of a lot of counties at the moment, the likes of Waterford and Limerick, who had several very young players in their Division Two win on Saturday evening.

“Clare too have been making great strides. Kilkenny were taking them on in a minor hurling challenge game, and I was very impressed with Clare. They had a very good minor team last year as well, a very good U21 team for a few years, including 2009 when they won the All-Ireland. So, you have to recognise that a lot of counties have been great progress in the last few years.

“But we’ve been working away at underage level as well through all the years of senior success. People shouldn’t forget that St Kieran’s won the All-Ireland colleges again this year, and that Kilkenny have won two of the last three All-Ireland titles. We have a reasonable minor team again this year, and a reasonable U21 team. I’m not saying this gives us any right to win senior All-Irelands for the next few years, but we’re up there with everyone else. We’re developing away, we never lost sight of the future.

“The thing is, when you win seven All-Ireland titles, five National Leagues and nine Leinster titles, all in 10 years, it’s very hard to keep up that level of success. That was going to be impossible to maintain.

“The fact that we lost an All-Ireland final last year and now a National League final on Sunday, doesn’t mean we’re going to disappear either. The guys who are to come back would make a significant difference to any team. Whether that’s going to make us good enough to beat Dublin remains to be seen, that’s a question for another day.”

And Quinn predicts an exciting — and open — hurling championship for 2011.

“Many people would have Tipperary and Dublin as favourites to win in Munster and Leinster, but in the modern setup those who are beaten aren’t gone from the championship, they have the qualifiers — imagine if it was still knockout, the games you’d have!

“I wouldn’t write off anyone, and Offaly are going to test Dublin. In fact Dublin will have to get by both Offaly and Galway to reach a Leinster final. They’re well capable of that, but being capable of it and doing it are two very different things.

“It looks like we’ll be meeting Wexford in Wexford Park in the other semi-final, and that will be a humdinger as well. Oh, it’s going to be some championship.”