Enda McEvoy: Sustained success is a manager’s ultimate virtue

The end arrived as a silent thunderbolt. At last Monday’s homecoming Cody informed the county board authorities he wanted to talk to them next day

LONGEVITY: Ensuring that eaten silverware was soon forgotten and convincing his players that they were only as good as their next – not their last – game was another of Brian Cody's gifts. 

The end arrived as a silent thunderbolt. At last Monday’s homecoming he informed the county board authorities he wanted to talk to them next day. They knew there and then. For once he wouldn’t be spending the autumn looking into his own heart before telling them he was returning.

If Brian Cody couldn’t depart in triumph, and in the circumstances a triumph last week would have been the greatest of his career, then at least he departs trailing a strange kind of glory. A cracking All-Ireland final, brilliant champions and splendid runners-up. If one has to fail at the last fence, here was the way to do it.