MOST years, by now hurling fans down Kilkenny way would be basking in the glory of another All-Ireland win, heading out to see the Liam McCarthy Cup on its near-annual tour of the county, wishing the players well as they reflect on another successful season.
This business of still being in the dark at the end of September – a section of the calendar usually the preserve of footballers, golfers and horses – is new to them.
This week people have been remarking on how “quiet” the Kilkenny camp has been since that dramatic draw with Galway in the first instalment of this year’s final three weeks ago.
Quietly confident or quietly nervous?
“I think this Kilkenny team have reached new levels again, although Galway tamed them a bit in the Leinster final and the All-Ireland final,” Seamus Quigley said yesterday.
The Thomastown man has become renowned in the area for his “shrine” of black and amber-bedecked mannequins, which he places at the end of his laneway every day during All-Ireland countdowns. “But I think they’ll rise to the occasion and do the business. I think they’ll get this one and get the ninth medal for Henry [Shefflin].”
Quigley started off his display of devotion with a couple of dressed-up mannequins and has built it up to nine this year, in what has become something of a tourist attraction. “People just come along and sit down with them and get their photos taken,” he said.
If things are relatively quiet now, hurling-wise, it will be very different on Sunday night in the event of a Kilkenny win – what would be their ninth in 13 years – and again on Monday night when the players return from Dublin.
Whether they win or lose, this year’s homecoming represents a new departure for the city, as it will culminate in a civic reception at the Nowlan Park GAA grounds rather than the Market Yard, which hosted the panel and management in recent years.
“The decision was taken on safety grounds and for crowd control reasons,” explained senior engineer Kieran Fitzgerald of Kilkenny Borough Council yesterday. There was no dissent from any side on the issue, he said.
The replay presented its own challenges to the council and the GAA county board as it had to rearrange the players’ return to home territory three weeks later than anticipated.
“It’s going to be that bit darker earlier on so we’re trying to have it a bit earlier. Particularly from the point of view of visibility at the stadium.”
This year the panel will travel by bus and the parade through the city will start on the Castle Road. “We’re hoping they’ll be home by 5.30pm and in the stadium at 6.30pm, so we’d be finished up by 7.30pm.”
There will be live music and other entertainment at Nowlan Park from 4pm on Monday.
A Kerryman exiled in hurling country, Fitzgerald is nonetheless enthusiastic about the new homecoming arrangements.
“If it’s triumphant, we’ll probably have about 15,000 people in Nowlan Park,” he said.
A defeat would still draw a large crowd of supporters who know this particular team owes nothing to anybody.