Cody feels the pain for Clare

All-Ireland SHC Semi-final/Kilkenny v Clare: Brian Cody has a serene sort of smile on his face. He sticks his head out the door and asks if the media want to talk to him. Many heads nod eagerly.

"Well, I wouldn't like to presume," he says, and steps out.

As befits a man who has got his team over the hump and into another final, he's delighted. At least that's what he says. You can see his brain is chewing on other stuff though.

"Clare were excellent today. We got a great start, but in hurling sometimes a great start isn't that good. A goal that early? They came back."

They did. Clare needed to be put down three times before they would stay down.

Most of the putting down yesterday was done by Henry Shefflin: 1-13 in an All-Ireland semi-final? They gave him the Man of the Match award and if his hands hadn't been full they might have given him his All Star on the way out also.

"Henry is outstanding," said Cody. "The trouble with players like Henry is that they set their own standards several years ago and they have to live up to them the whole time, and that's massively difficult. Henry always will live up to it. He's a huge team player. He works for the team. And when he gets on a day like today . . .

"He got key scores, some of them stand out in my mind.

"The team isn't all about Henry to be fair. There were great performances through the field. Different players pick it up on different days. Without a huge team effort we wouldn't be where we are."

With an All-Ireland final and another crack at Cork beckoning, Cody won't be spending too long reflecting on yesterday. The game was already settling into his mind, however, ready to be quickly processed for its usefulness.

"Level at half-time. There were times when they threatened. I was told coming off that we had 18 wides. It's a lot, but at least we are creating scoring chances.

"All-Ireland semi-final day is a horrible place to lose. We did that last year. Obviously Clare did too. It's a horrible feeling walking away from an All-Ireland semi-final and knowing the final is in three weeks and you aren't in it. We have changed that this year and we are going to be playing in it."

Shefflin popped out briefly to collect his cut glass from RTÉ. He paid tribute to clubmate Cha Fitzpatrick, but, as is Kilkenny's theme song, this year nothing is about the individual. "That's the way it goes. The fellas who block and hook and give the ball to Cha or to me, they are the ones who make the difference. He was great today, he was brilliant."

Shefflin was customarily modest about his goal. "For the goal, Brian Lohan did everything right. He was out in front of me. Brian Cody would have been giving out to me being behind. It skidded off the surface on Brian and came to me. Lucky enough."

For Clare just the torture of going home as beaten semi-finalists again. All next week will be devoted to could have and should have. Regrets. Anthony Daly stood with his back to the field and pored over it with his usual good grace.

"It's just disappointing I suppose. On the day the better team won. To be honest with you, we needed to be going five points up instead of giving them an awful soft goal. One of those things. If Brian approached that ball another 10 times he'd pick it up and clear it every time, but the ball deceived him and Shefflin won't miss those ones. The boys fought back very well. At the end of the day we have no complaints. They were better."

At the beginning of the year Anthony Daly had set out his stall that this would be his last year in charge. He has done so much with this team, though, that perhaps the temptation is there. There is a new generation of Clare players shaping up.

"We had a magnificent chance last year I suppose," said Daly. "We were firefighting all year this year. We're probably a step ahead of a fair few teams but there's a little bit of a gap between Kilkenny and Cork and the rest. Even Waterford, as good as they played, couldn't quite get there. We'll see. I probably made up my mind that it will be my last year, but I'm emotional now and tired and I won't make any final call this evening. In the next few days I'll have a think about it."

And he disappeared back into the gloom with his team. Let's hope not the last we'll see of one of the game's bigger characters.