Barry always beginning again

Leinster Hurling Final/Kilkenny v Wexford: For a player on the verge of becoming one of the most decorated in hurling history - if he isn't that already - Peter Barry has the most head-scratching of attitudes towards success. When he spoke this week about tomorrow's latest joust with Wexford at Croke Park he ended up practically courting sympathy. Wow, wouldn't it be great if he won another Leinster hurling title. You have to keep reminding yourself he has won six of them already.

Barry is typical of this Kilkenny team, each of them as idiosyncratic as the next. He comes across as a gentleman and a scholar (which he is), not someone who can terrorise a hurling match with the cold heart of an assassin (which he also is). And that's the way it is with most of these Kilkenny hurlers - from Tommy Walsh to Henry Shefflin and even DJ Carey.

When they beat Offaly by 31 points in last month's Leinster semi-final not one of them jumped in the air clicking their heals. When Shefflin was interviewed afterwards he spoke with sombre guilt rather than any satisfaction - 2-11 in one afternoon, how could I? There's always been walking contradictions like that in Irish sport, but rarely so many of them in the one team.

Clearly there are some major alter egos in Kilkenny hurling, however indefinable. Success is habit forming, and so is the fear of failure. That still doesn't explain why a player like Barry comes out year after year and plays to win as if his previous list of honours is written in water. It's like his career is worth nothing unless he goes on winning. That's at least part of what Kilkenny hurling is about.

Take Barry's latest season, a decade on from when he first joined the senior panel. In October he helped his club, James Stephens, recapture the county title after 23 years, and earned the Kilkenny captaincy in the process. After that he lifted the Leinster club trophies and the All-Ireland club trophies, and rejoined the Kilkenny panel in time to lift the National League trophy. If everything goes to plan between tomorrow and the second Sunday in September he'll have lifted six of the most coveted trophies in hurling - in the one season. Things like that don't happen by accident, even if Barry makes it sound as if it has.

He presents success, confidence and the will to win as mere extensions of being a Kilkenny hurler. And you don't look back until the day you hand up your hurley. Even last year's setbacks have been suspended, when Wexford took their Leinster hurling title and Cork their All-Ireland title.

"I'm not even sure last year was a setback," he says. "We lost our Leinster title, which we do value very highly, but it really just sent us in a different direction. We ended up having matches every couple of weeks, and that was almost a new adventure for us. Then when we got to the final we just fell at the last hurdle.

"But if you start looking back you'll fall over yourself. If we had won something last year we'd still be looking to go out this year and win something more. We've a group of lads who all really want to hurl. And Brian Cody just keeps driving it on. So it's everyone's ambition to win, and win all the time."

Yet Cody's attitudes towards success have become the foundation of the team. From the beginning he recognised the difference between talent and skill. Talent comes naturally, and skill needs to be taught. He once described pressure as something you feel doing an exam without having studied, but as long as you prepare right for hurling there is no pressure. His influence on the team can never be overstated.

Barry doesn't play down his role either: "Everyone knows about the tradition in Kilkenny, and every player in Kilkenny wants to follow that. When you first see Kilkenny hurl you want to play for them. I think Brian Cody recognises that. He was the same, and knows we're all the same. But the structures are there too, and Brian would be behind a lot of that. So it is a case of going out to win every match. Not going out to do well, but to win. We're all like that.

"We've been lucky as well to get a good group of lads, with a good manager, in a good county board set-up. And it's always about the next game. That means winning the next game, because that's all we want to do. It starts at the Walsh Cup and goes through to the Leinster final. You want to achieve on an individual basis, and if you do that it will fall through to the team."

Kilkenny are at the stage where they so rarely disappoint that it must be getting harder to generate the fear of failure. When they were ambushed by Galway in the All-Ireland semi-final of 2001, Cody later admitted the essential problem was they weren't competitive enough. Incredibly, they've consistently been competitive enough ever since - give or take one or two rare occasions.

The perception is that that competitive edge is constantly sharpened in training, and that on any midweek evening you could walk into Nowlan Park and witness the sort of hurling normally reserved for Croke Park on championship Sundays.

"I think a lot is made of things like that," says Barry, still in gentleman mode. "We do have a good pick of players. We've 12 senior clubs and 12 intermediate clubs in Kilkenny so there'll always be lads knocking on the door. If there's not there's something wrong with hurling in the county. But hurling in the county is going well.

"But since I've been playing with Kilkenny from minor on up there's always been that competition for places. Even in the minor team every year there's very healthy competition. Of course you don't like being out for too long, but that's the same with any county team.

"And on the field I don't think it's about confidence . . . But when it comes to the big days you still go out hoping it will come right. We know things can go wrong on any day as well. So it's not really about confidence. It's about us going out knowing we have the potential and ability to do what we can do."

The thought of Kilkenny hurlers shuddering and trembling on the inside while they remain expressionless on the outside is particularly hard to fathom. Yet Wexford being Wexford does ensure tomorrow's game comes loaded with its share of uncertainty.

Kilkenny are expected to win, just like they were a year ago before Michael Jacob's late goal stopped them in their tracks. Still, not even the growing imbalance in Leinster hurling is about to take Kilkenny's eye off the prize.

"I believe the game is still healthy in Leinster," he continues. "We set ourselves a goal to beat Offaly and get back into the Leinster final, and win our title back. We got a very good start, and they just couldn't recover. But I still wouldn't like playing Offaly the following week. Teams will always win well over someone else. It's a cyclical thing. At some stage it will come back around where the games are tight again. There was no one worried last year when Waterford beat Clare the way they did. No one said there is anything wrong with hurling in Clare because there isn't. It was just one of those days.

"And it was the same when we beat Wexford in the league by 30 points or whatever. We got a very good start, just kept going. The same thing happened last year down in Wexford Park, so you can't look into that at all. Wexford will always find their form come the championship.

"So the hunger is still there, it has to be. It's no different to when you're starting out. Like then if someone says to me you've a Leinster final on Sunday, will you be up for it? Of course I'm up for it."