Brian Cody: 'We don’t have any excuses, we don’t want excuses'

It was put to Brian Cody that 2018 had been an “outstanding” year for his team.

Their early exit from the 2017 race, Michael Fennelly’s retirement in January of this year, and a bad beating at home to Clare on the first weekend of February — their second of the league — saw Kilkenny tipped for relegation from Division 1A and not fancied to do much else thereafter.