Brian Cody: No unfair results in sport

Kilkenny manager Brian Cody paid tribute to his players’ attitude after their narrow win over Cork, saying they had fought “tooth and nail for every ball” in their one-point victory.

“It’s about every second of the game and the whole thing goes on forever. The attitude, the fight, we had different players who stood up at different times. In the second half, we came out and got into the game very quickly, and showed great attitude to get back into the game.

“Cork went at us again and got a big lead. With five minutes to go it looked like they were going to win the game but it goes to the final whistle. The attitude of being constantly— keeping going, that was there, we got the two points and now we’re in a league quarter-final.

“The game is won out there with everyone fighting tooth and nail for every ball. They were doing it and they had the upper hand for a long time doing that. We worked our way back into it, and that’s what you have to do.

“Five, six, seven points isn’t a huge lead in hurling — would you want it? Of course you would. Can it be pegged back? Of course.

“A goal is so important in hurling and we got one, and then the other — and that’s it.”

Cody acknowledged his opponents’ spirit also: “ In sport there’s no fair result or unfair result. I’m not suggesting for a second that we were better than Cork at all. If it had been a draw we’d have both walked away with a point.

“We’re going away with the points not because we had a better attitude, because theirs was outstanding, but because that’s where it ended when the final whistle blew.”

Cork selector Pat Ryan Pat Ryan was left rueing Cork’s failure to take late chances.

“That’s Kilkenny, you never count them out, but we also created some chances at the end to win the game that we didn’t take, a couple of good opportunities but it’s a learning curve and now we have to drive on again next week against Tipperary.

“I thought we used the ball well, the idea was to get the ball into Seamie (Harnedy) and I thought he was excellent. Fellas moved off him very well and used patterns of play that we wanted them to use. That’s what we’ve been working on. We decided we wanted them to break the tackle and to get the ball in as early as we could.”

Ryan acknowledged the criticism Cork received this week: “Obviously we try not to read into it. When it comes from people who are concerned about Cork hurling that’s fair enough, you just don’t take it on board if it comes from people outside, who aren’t concerned about Cork hurling. There are very genuine people who want Cork hurling to be better, and we’re all in the same boat.

“There’s a huge amount of positives (tonight) but we have to factor in the first three games. Just because we had a good performance tonight doesn’t mean we weren’t up to standard in the first three. That’s the consistency of performance that we want.

“I think people would have enjoyed the game and been proud of it as Cork people whereas last week in Dublin I don’t think you could have been proud to be a Cork hurling man.”

Ryan said Cork are hopeful Mark Ellis will recover soon from an arm injury.

“He got a plate in his arm which means he can do physical training within the next two weeks, which will keep up his physical fitness. As regards the Tipperary game, we’d hope he would be back for the start of May, but that would be with everything going one hundred per cent.”