Brian Cody says nothing cast in stone

All-Ireland winning Kilkenny manager Brian Cody said yesterday he never played with a sweeper, but said nothing was “cast in stone” when it comes to setting up his teams.

“It has (generated talk) — each manager or coach brings their own thoughts to the game, to the tactics they want to apply. It’s up for grabs,” he said when quizzed on strategies and approaches to games.

“You can play two, three or four sweepers if you want to and you bring whatever you want to the thing. Nothing is cast in stone except you have to play with 15 players.

“That’s everybody’s right. Personally, whatever team I’d be involved with, with the club or Kilkenny, I could never see myself employing an actual sweeper, but who knows?

“At the end of the day, I’m concerned about what I do. I’ve seen it happen and it can be successful for players, and for teams, but it’ll be interesting to see where it goes this year. If it’s happening at secondary school . . . I didn’t realise that, but if it’s creeping in there, then it’s creeping in there.

“Regardless of what kind of tactics a team employs, you have to face up to whatever’s in front of you. Waterford used a sweeper system last year, Tadhg de Burca played that role and he was on a hell of a lot of ball. What did they do — they won the league, came close to a Munster championship, made an All-Ireland semi-final and had a serious game with us. They were very competitive.

“Other than that, I don’t know what other teams used it in intercounty last year. Clare might use different systems — I suppose we’re one- dimensional!

“I wouldn’t cast any aspersions on anyone, I’d be silly if I did. If we’re playing a match and the opposition employs a sweeper system, then that’s a challenge for us to try to deal with that. If they employ an orthodox 15 on 15, that’s another challenge. Pontificating on whether they should or they shouldn’t, that’s not for me.”

Last year Kilkenny faced a relegation play-off against Clare in last year’s league, but Cody said there had never been “panic” in the black and amber ranks.

“We’ve proven historically we’ve always taken the league seriously, but the reality about it now is it’s so competitive, every game, every team you play it’s a serious game, coming every week.

“And that’s fine. It’ll be the same approach this year — we’ll want to win it, and to look at players, panel options. That’ll be the approach.

“I wasn’t thinking ahead (last year), I wasn’t thinking ‘September’, I was thinking of the next game. We were in the relegation game, it was as simple as that. We played Clare the week before the relegation game and then we had to go and play them again. Those were two serious games.

“We hadn’t been performing terrifically well up to that. The first day out against Cork we did well, but after that we were struggling. But it was never a question of panic or anything like that.

“The championship goes ahead a few weeks later and we’d always have confidence in our panel, no matter who’s missing. That’s not a confidence we’ll win something, a confidence that we’d be competitive.

“And that’s the plan again this year.” He pointed to the advantages of a strong panel in the case of Shane Prendergast last year: “It’s tremendously satisfying to see a player like Shane Prendergast come in at 28, 29, into an All-Ireland semi-final and final and perform after he’s been on the panel a few years. That happened with Joey (Holden). We haven’t forgotten Eoin (Larkin) either. He’s out in Syria and I’ve no doubt he’ll come back in good shape. He’ll work hard out there, his commitment will be t otal and we’ll look forward to him getting back to us.”

The Kilkenny boss was speaking at the launch of a new three year sponsorship deal between the Cats and Glanbia.