Light Cross to bear for Cork’s Kenny
“Wait now,” says Kenny. “Shane O’Neill has an All-Ireland medal as well, I’m not the only one.”
True, but O’Neill collected his as a sub. Kenny picked his up in Cork’s win over Galway back in 2005.
“I suppose it shows how open the championship is this year, which isn’t a bad thing for hurling as a whole,” he says.
“I think there were two or three medals on the Cork team when we played Kilkenny a couple of weeks ago in the quarter-final, and there were 70-plus on the Kilkenny team.
“It’s probably good for the championship because it indicates that it’s become very open.”
Well, you mentioned Kilkenny. Some time has elapsed since Cork put them out of the championship, so how does Kenny see that game now?
“They’ve probably been the best team in hurling history and they were favourites going into the game, and rightly so based on their achievements.
“We knew we hadn’t played as well as we could or were as focused as we might have been in the Munster final, and having watched how Waterford played, how they took Kilkenny to extra-time, we thought we might have a chance. We played well and we didn’t let them play, but they also missed four or five frees in the first half as well which normally you’d expect to go over. If they’d scored four of those they’d have been only one down at the end of the first half, and 14 men or 15 men they’d have been in with a right chance.
“The same goes for the penalty incident at the start of the second half. Who knows what might have happened if they’d scored a goal from that, but thankfully a bit of luck went our way for a change.
“They’ve been a fantastic team but we were confident we could do a good job. And we did.”
Did it seem that they were slightly off their best? “It just felt that way, slightly, particularly in the second half,” says Kenny.
“They didn’t seem as vocal as they usually are with each other, but it was their sixth championship game, and they probably haven’t played that many championship games in a long time, and those games came thick and fast.
“Maybe their training was tailored to having two games in Leinster and two in the All-Ireland series. You could sense they were a bit fatigued, that maybe the year had caught up with them. Once the game was over maybe the best thing for a lot of them would be to go back to their clubs and get a good pre-season done; a lot of their injured players mightn’t have had a lot done before the season started, so next year they could come back stronger.”
Kenny himself is on the Cork team since 2003. Dos he have a role in talking the younger players through their preparations and match experiences?
“Certainly if I’m at training and I see one of the lads doing something and there’s anything I might add in to help, I will, but a lot of them would feel at ease coming to me if they wanted to ask about something as well.
“Pa [Cronin] is doing a great job as captain but he probably doesn’t want to be doing all the talking all the time either, it’s no harm for different lads to chip in, not just me. Sometimes there’s a need to be quiet, too, and to focus on the task at hand.”
The task at hand tomorrow is Dublin, of course. Cork edged them out in the league last year but this is a different challenge.
“The year before last the hurling community really had to sit up and take notice,” says Kenny.
“They won the league — and were very impressive in doing so — while they also got to an All-Ireland semi, where a bit of inexperience might have come against them.
“Last year was up and down for them but they obviously refocused for this year. Anthony Daly has obviously done a good job because their conditioning, their strength, their hurling — all of those have been very good, and their game awareness generally has come on a lot.
“A lot of that’s got to be down to Anthony, because he’s always been a very astute tactician. In the Leinster final they’d been on the road five weeks in a row but they came out all guns blazing. It’s going to be difficult for us.”
With their footballers turning Cork over last weekend, however, will the pressure be on the men in sky blue?
“I think it will be, they’re Leinster champions, they’re playing in their own back yard... the footballers have always had a bigger following in Dublin but the fact the hurlers are going well now means their following will increase. We’ve come in through the back door, but while we made it to a Munster final you’d probably say that as a team Dublin are further along the road in terms of development than our team.”
And that medal? “Ah, people haven’t really been slagging me about it, but a few people have brought it up in a ‘that’s a handy thing to have on the CV, being the last guy in the championship with a medal’.”
Where is that medal anyway?
“You’d have to ask the mam and dad about that. My best guess would be on a shelf at home somewhere.”
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