Hell hath no fury like a Kilkenny hurler scorned as Paddy Deegan backs Cats to silence doubters again
NINE LONG YEARS: Paddy Deegan wants to get his hands on the Liam MacCarthy cup for Kilkenny. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Hell hath no fury like a Kilkenny hurler scorned. It’s a truism that only gets truer.
Exhibit A: 2011. After exacting revenge on Tipperary in the All-Ireland final, Brian Cody and a player or two refer back to a newspaper’s “Croker Chokers” headline after they lost that year’s league final to Dublin.
“We mentioned that only after the All-Ireland final,” smiled Cody a year later although he regarded it as “insulting”. “We hadn't read it, we save up the papers until after the game."
Exhibit B: 2014. Taking umbrage at how Clare were perceived to have reinvented the game the year before, Cody sees his team bounce back to glory days. In three separate interviews, Richie Hogan, Eoin Larkin and Richie Power mention how the team had been dismissed in 2013.
Exhibit C: 2015. The All-Ireland win over Galway gave Hogan extra pleasure because of what had been said about The Cats.
“This year it was extra sweet because with the way last year went and being written off in a lot of places outside Kilkenny, people saying that a lot of players were coming to the end."
Exhibit D: 2022. Ballyhale Shamrocks’ TJ Reid and Colin Fennelly speak of “a lot of disrespect shown to the club” in the build-up to their All-Ireland semi-final against Ballygunner when they toppled the then champions.
An interpreted lack of credit has fuelled Kilkenny over these last couple of seasons too. Eoin Cody brought up last year and doubled down on it following the county’s fifth consecutive Leinster title last month.
“I don’t think we get enough credit for the consistency in this group of players. Obviously, we’re not a Munster team and we can’t do anything about that but we’ll always be there or thereabouts.”
In the build-up to their handsome win over Dublin last month and after accepting the Bob O’Keeffe Cup, the same sentiment of disregard was detected and declared by Paddy Deegan.
The strength of the Munster championship overshadows Leinster but he felt they didn’t get enough acknowledgement for beating Dublin in Parnell Park in May.
Reflecting on his words, he says: “I think just in general it was spoken about, kind of Dublin and how well they were going over the weeks prior to it and how we were going to maybe struggle with their running game in Croke Park on the big pitch.
“I just felt there wasn’t much spoken about us in a way and maybe that’s just because maybe our performances weren’t of a level that people expected coming into that game but I thought we kind of did well in the Leinster final.
“Look, it’s just the word going around. You’re reading it and everything like that. I could be politically correct and say that we don’t read things in the media or anything like that but when things are being said that, you know, maybe it’ll go against us, you will look at it, yeah.”
Deegan is realistic enough to appreciate Kilkenny are judged as much by their past as the present, the nine years since a last Liam MacCarthy Cup being acutely felt in the county.
“I suppose it’s always going to happen when you’re going from what that Kilkenny team achieved 10/15 years ago. When you’re coming from that, obviously you can’t expect to win All-Irelands every single year, year-in, year-out, like. That’s obviously a goal but the five Leinsters in a row, the consistency to be able to do that and do it over the five years is just incredible, yeah.”
Still, and Deegan is able to name them, only five of the panel have All-Ireland senior medals – Cillian Buckley, Conor Fogarty, Eoin Murphy, Reid and Walter Walsh. Almost a decade on from their last Celtic Crosses, they are still looking to augment their hauls.
“They don't need to be there,” Deegan stresses. “They have won everything. They have achieved it all. They want to be there and they know that there is a strong group of players there, strong young lads coming as well. They know that there is something special there and hopefully we can get over the line.”
The O’Loughlin Gaels man has been the moveable feast for Kilkenny, lined out across the half-back line and recently in midfield where he has been finding his scoring range.
“I'm gone a bit more confident with the shooting, Richie (Hogan) would have been a big influence on that.”
His approach to alternating roles is a philosophical one. "I have spoken to Derek (Lyng) a lot about my position, he's aware of that, he doesn't want me moving too much but he knows that if he gives me a job to do, I'll do it to the best of my ability.
"If I am not performing well, that's not because I am moving positions, it's because I wasn't on form."
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