Cats' pursuit of excellence complete

ALL-IRELAND HURLING FINAL - The aftermath:THIS BEING a week for porcine allusions, how about Kilkenny's adherence to the old peasant saw to the effect that "if you're out to buy a pig, talk about the weather".

Waterford were the perfect opposition for a side looking for a chunk of history. Could they? Would they? Wouldn't it be great for hurling? They'll certainly match them physically? At last they are there. Kilkenny kept the conversation on the weather. And brought home the pig.

So Kilkenny delivered the perfect performance at the optimum time. Three-in-a-row and the seizing of the summit of hurling history. Neighbours whupped and vanquished.

The confident erudition of their hurling, the ability to absorb distraction, both physical and mental (the early ungainly application of a boot to the back of his leg did nothing more than kick-start Eddie Brennan to 2-4 ), and the faithful adherence to a game plan placed a gulf between not just Kilkenny and Waterford but between Kilkenny and the rest of the contenders.

"You dream of an ideal performance but it never happens," says Seán Óg Ó hAilpín. "You dream of winning every ball and every contest when you are in a final but it never turns out like that. Except last week for Kilkenny."

"I'd have to say, yes, it was the best performance we have put together," says Henry Shefflin.

"In 2002 we had good ones against Tipp and against Clare and '06 against Cork was a great team performance. But for us to score 3-30 - 3-24 from play? We didn't dream of it. We got some great scores and great goals. You go to kids matches and see great scores taken and see that freedom in play. It was great to get a bit of that and to score some great goals on All-Ireland final day."

Last Sunday's was as great a team performance as we have seen delivered, not just in hurling but in any sport. The magnitude of Kilkenny's achievement will be appreciated more fully as time passes. Last Sunday our view of things was clouded by the disappointment all neutrals felt at being denied the excitement of a close contest and by the compulsive need to analyse and find somebody to blame rather than somebody to acclaim.

Waterford were slow to move on the line but, on a day when Kilkenny's elemental fury just swept everything away, Davy Fitz must have spared a thought for the deckchair attendant on the Titanic. There were 15 problems and no solutions evident.

And the game was divided not by the half -time break but by the minute it took Eddie Brennan to score his two goals. Waterford had girded themselves amid the furious hype with the thought that they were surely a better team than Limerick had been a year previously. Whatever happened, they said, it won't be like Limerick. Look around the pitch they said, we can win enough battles to be close with 10 minutes to go.

As it happened they won no battles. Martin Comerford had an inconspicuous day in stripes at centre forward but his unseen work in pulling Ken McGrath around the place and his effectiveness under puck-outs were as influential as a few points might have been. And that was about it. By half-time Kilkenny could have done what mentors often do in one-sided juvenile matches, put on all the subs and switch around all the backs with the forwards.

There is a tendency to characterise Kilkenny's performance in terms of an explosion. A few of us have likened it to Usain Bolt's effulgent 100 metres in Beijing. It is a poor analogy. Kilkenny have been building steadily toward this in recent years. There have been little landmarks worth noting.

Cody's embrace of Henry Shefflin as a big, skilful ball- winning forward who could be phenomenal was the first key act of his managerial tenure, the key to a partnership which has been at the heart of the last decade of work. Then those two pivotal games against Galway. That bone- shattering five-point semi-final defeat in 2001 at a time when the Carter, Carey, Shefflin full- forward line was being lauded as the greatest ever. And then three years later the afternoon in Thurles when Cody dragged and cajoled an epic performance from his team and they wreaked their vengeance by 19 points.

And then finally a quieter moment. Sometime in 2006 Adrian Finan, a coach and teacher in St Kieran's College went to see Ballyhale play Erin's Own one evening in Castlecomer. James "Cha" Fitzpatrick was playing midfield for Ballyhale and he was a revelation.

Finan had known Fitzpatrick all through his time in St Kieran's and could remember him demonstrating the first irrefutable sign of his timing and vision when arriving at speed to score a tap-in goal to win Kieran's a juvenile final when he was about 13.

He had the touch and timing of a forward, just not the speed, but as Finan says, "forwards are precious commodities. You'd always be loath to move a fella back, turn him into just another wing back, or something."

So it wasn't till that night in Castlecomer that something clicked in Finan's head.

" I wish I could claim credit for the idea but Ballyhale saw him as a midfielder first. I was with the Kilkenny under-21s at the time and we had a game arranged with the seniors. We were keeping all the younger players. I said to Brian (Cody) what I intended doing with Cha. Brian said to give it a go. Finan did. And Cha was the best player in the world pretty soon.

"He was exceptional that night," says Finan, " scoring points from the middle of the field. He always had great touch and vision but just lacked the pace in the forwards. At midfield speed wasn't an issue. Cha had always been a hurler who could play to angles and not straight lines. His peripheral vision, his heads-up approach to things when in possession made him a revelation.

"It is phenomenal what he has done," says Henry Shefflin, who is probably less surprised than some. "Cha we knew about in Ballyhale from an early age, we had seen him from under-10 and the skill and touch and the vision were there, he had it all. When he came through first he was a bit caught for pace. As a forward he found it hard. My own club played him midfield. He has been magnificent. He has everything but some of his passing is incredible."

Shefflin recalls being in the car with Fitzpatrick last year before the game with Limerick.

"He said 'if I see you going in behind their backs I'll drop the ball into you'. That's easy to say but he did it from 60 yards under pressure. We had seen Cork in 2003 and '05 with Tom Kenny and Jerry O'Connor, how they ran things. We had to match that. The two lads Cha and Derek (Lyng) have done that for us."

Shefflin didn't see a performance of that quality coming last week but when the team met a few weeks ago for a weekend in the luxurious Seafield Hotel in Wexford the meetings went well and they vowed to each other that it was up to each player to get his head right. Individuals. Then the collective. "Things were good down in Seafield. That was a great weekend for us, a perfect setting and we talked a lot. Then last Sunday at the pre-match meal a lot of fellas couldn't eat. Nerves are a good thing. We got the couple of scores early and we were away."

Kilkenny's excellence is frightening not just in its breadth but in it many layers. Seán Óg Ó hAilpín watched this season with more interest than most. He identified several things germane to anybody hoping to close the gap. "First they have talent. We all think we work hard. Having such a depth of talent is huge. They have players from 1 to 26 who would be in county teams anywhere." (Consideration must be given not just to players 1-26, but to those in disuse. Richie Hogan sits in the stand but his brother Paddy hovers outside the panel. Bryan Barry has gone, Brian Dowling, Ken Coogan, Michael Rice, Conor Phelan are all surplus to requirements)

"Second," says Seán Óg, "to win you have to win the key match -ups. They are hugely strong right down the middle. Then their sideline is really on the ball. When we played them we felt they were matching us but tactically they can beat anyone, they have so many options and see it so quick."

And then there is the business of the goals. The first 20 minutes of every game Kilkenny hunt for green flags. It took till the 20th minute in this year's final for two goals to come their way. They scored two in the eighth minute in last year's final. The classic example of a team upping the work-rate when they have just landed a punch.

"They place a huge emphasis on winning primary possession," says Ó hAilpín. "But when it is on the deck they move in force. In attack they come in swarms too. If you look at them this year when one of them has the ball there isn't just one option there are two or three. When they defend they block up the middle third making it very hard to get anything through. You get drawn upfield and then they will catch you on counter-attacks. They have the players there who will always win one-on-ones in space. And they have goalscorers. Any other team has one or two. They have four or five. Nobody can shut all of them down."

It all added up to last week's bravura performance which even in Kilkenny was a cause of unusual satisfaction. The pursuit there is as much of excellence as titles. Last Sunday brought the whole lot. Yesterday the team brought the trophy into that nursery of hurling, St Kieran's in Kilkenny city. The term is just starting in the great school but more than any other year recently the electric buzz from last week has brought the place alive.

All Kilkenny want is more. All the rest of Hurling Nation wants is a break. "It would help if they took their foot off the pedal," smiles Seán Óg, "but the state of hurling isn't your business when you are All-Ireland champions. They are the challenge. They can pull in talent like pulling apples off trees. We all have to figure out how to get to that level now."

Last week set the standard. Everyone chases from here on in.