Cody’s Dublin warning comes to pass

He had been telling us for years that Dublin’s moment was in the offing but Brian Cody, pictured right, had hoped against hope that day wouldn’t come to pass on his watch.

Saturday turned out to be that day. “I’m saying a long time about the quality of Dublin teams. To me, we were playing one of the top teams in the country and it was a ding-dong battle.

“I think Dublin are very good, they have great strength, athleticism and their hurling was top notch again. Their score taking was excellent.

“I’m saying this about hurling for years and I’m finding it hard to convince ye but I think ye are coming around.

“It’s gone, it’s past, we’ll face up to next weekend and we’ll look forward to the challenge.

Tipperary should present one in Nowlan Park on Saturday but fresh injuries could further hamper Kilkenny’s chances. Cillian Buckley retired early in Portlaoise and left the venue on crutches while neither Michael Rice nor Jackie Tyrrell looked fully fit.

As for Henry Shefflin, Michael Fennelly and Paul Murphy, Cody dismissed their chances of being fit for the weekend. “Not a hope, no, not a hope.”

Cody shrugged off the opportunity to cite those setbacks as an excuse for Saturday’s defeat and is not making any complaints about the six-day turnaround to the do-or-die qualifier with Tipperary.

“It’s not a worry at the moment. We have a few injuries and that’s where the worry comes in but it’s there, we can’t do anything about it.

“We won’t start looking at the negatives. We’ll just get ourselves ... obviously it won’t be a physical preparation, it’ll be a mental preparation and that’ll be about it.”

Obviously, we had a great battle in the league final and it’ll be a great occasion. But it’ll only be a great occasion for Kilkenny if we win.”