Content Cody heaps praise on vanquished

MAYBE SOMEDAY somebody will do a survey sometime, but surely this Kilkenny team sweep all the plaudits for the most games won with the smallest expenditure of words.

Brian Cody came to the interview room unflanked by breathless gushing players.

Brian himself doesn’t do breathless and gushing. When he gets between inverted commas he offers no hostages to fortune, no loose words. And still he fascinates. His self-control and single-mindedness are wonders of the world.

“Any time we looked like we might get breathing space they came back again,” he noted. “It was one of those great games. Obviously, Waterford came here on final day last September and just didn’t play and we knew they would atone for that in a major way. They performed at a very, very high level. I expected that completely.”

And he did because Kilkenny are in a place now where they expect that from every team. They expect it and deal with it.

“My opinion of Waterford is the same now as it was before last year’s All-Ireland final. They are an excellent team and have been for the last 10 years or so, some of the finest individuals to play the game and they have brought in great young players. Last year’s final was a one-off thing for us and an awful thing for them, a thing that could happen to any of us.

“It happened and they reacted to it and responded to it and came back and got to a semi-final and made valiant strides to try to get to another All-Ireland final and just came up short.”

Any sympathy for those Waterford players who have spent the bulk of their careers toiling in the shadow of Kilkenny’s brilliance. Men like Tony Browne?

“Tony Browne to me is one of the finest hurlers that ever played the game,” said Cody “One thing he would not want, one thing we never want when we lose, is sympathy from the opposition.

“The same goes for all this Waterford team. My opinion of them is of a massively high proportion. My respect the same.”

He sits there, calmly, cap in place, unanimated, familiar with his role. It hardly needs a win in September to make him the greatest manager in hurling history. You ask him about his feelings, those sort of things are nowhere near his mind anyway.

“Sport is sport. You go up, every day you bare you soul, see what happens, see what it brings you. My thoughts on the All -Ireland final are that it is a smashing place to be. The big prize today is to get to an All-Ireland final. The winners get that. For the losers the year is over. It is a horrible feeling.”

“To be part and parcel to the build-up to an All-Ireland final and All-Ireland final day is what any player wants. I’ll be here next Sunday to sit back and enjoy Limerick playing Tipperary and see what happens.”

There is little use, but we ask about what keeps Kilkenny on the road. Year in and year out. The same training precinct. The same discomfort zone, the same success.

“Hunger. I make no bones about it. Never suggest that our hunger will be up for grabs. It won’t be. That’s intact. That’s there. When you talk about the quality of players, the players who go out on the pitch and the players they represent who are on the sideline, there is too much involved in that to ever give it less than your best.

“Hunger is a guarantee. At the end of the day anything could happen. It goes to the final whistle though and you trust in the players and believe in the players.”

He spoke about the experience of being pushed harder and harder each day. How the margins got smaller this year, single digit wins. Nothing he would turn his nose up to though.

“Single digit! I’ll settle for that anytime. In hurling a lead of nine or 10 points is little, but a lead of one point at the end of a game is all you need. I have no idea what we won by today. It is not about margins of victory. It is about giving it all you have.”

And there in a few quiet words is the essence of Kilkenny hurling and Cody its master. Giving it all you have. The team that gives the most, wins the most.

Kilkenny on each count.