Cody: It wasn’t totally easy for Kilkenny

By Cóilín Duffy

Despite landing his 14th Leinster Senior Hurling title as Kilkenny manager thanks to a 12-point win over Dublin, Brian Cody said it wasn’t all that easy at Croke Park this afternoon.

Just four points separated the counties at half-time in GAA Headquarters, but the Cats were ruthless on the restart, with Dublin failing to score from the 48th minute until the end, as Kilkenny registered seven unanswered scores.

“We are very happy to have won the game" , Cody said afterwards.

“Obviously it was a convincing margin in the end, but we were tested several times during the game.

“We got a nice few points early on, but they rocked us with a goal. I think we responded well. It was serious hurling there for a long time and for a period in the second half we were put under a lot of pressure.

“We were finding it difficult to make progress, but we defended strongly.”

Cody had special praise for his back six, who provide solid at key stages, particularly in the second half.

“I felt our defence was very strong and the work rate right throughout the field was very good. We weathered the storm and we finished strongly.

“Dublin would be disappointed with some of their misses too, to be fair. They had chances that they probably didn’t take as well. Certainly David Herity advanced well one time to clear out what looked like being a certain goal.

“That was very, very important and that contributed to their lack of scores as well in the second half.”

Today’s win sees Kilkenny take the Bob O’Keeffe Cup for the first time since 2011, and Cody says it’s nice to be provincial kingpins once more.

“For sure. The fact that we are Leinster champions is something that is very worthwhile and something which we try to do. Also it gets us into an All-Ireland semi-final which is good as well.

“There’s a five-week wait for that now and there’s going to be a lot of hurling done in the meantime before we find out who we are going to be playing, but it’s a nice place to be."