Brian Cody: It was always going to be a huge battle

In the stands, on Hill 16 and wherever it was being watched on TV, long before Brian Gavin blew the last whistle, there was a knowing resignation that what we were witnessing was another victorious march towards an All-Ireland final for Kilkenny.

Waterford did their utmost to stifle them, but you can only hold a tiger by the tail for so long before it lands a bite and so it proved. Everyone could see it, though to look at Brian Cody as the second-half wore on you would imagine this was turning into a very bad day.

Cody, in the popular image, is a man of calm, as immovable emotionally as a rock, and yet he is anything but that on the sideline as the sliotar soars from one end to the other and his charges go about their impeccable business.