Cody gets to grips with leading question

Twice in two games against Galway this summer, Kilkenny have gone behind early. It's something they will look to reverse on Sunday, writes MALACHY CLERKIN

HE WOULDN’T be Brian Cody if he did surprised or shocked or unprepared. Nothing new under the hurling sun and all that.

So when he’s asked if he had a contingency plan squirrelled away somewhere just in case there came a draw in the All-Ireland final, he’s not long turning the question neatly on its head.

“It wasn’t on the radar, I’m afraid not,” he says. “I’d be lying if I pretended we’d be keeping ourselves a small bit fresh for the replay.”

So the three-week gap has been a blessing. It’s the greatest distance he can ever remember between a draw and a replay for as long as he’s been in the game but he’s had no trouble filling the time.

He’s watched the drawn match back a couple of times but a lot of the work has been getting his players to adapt to the odd situation of still going at it full-bore on nights that are increasingly dark and cold and, especially this week, wet. Physically, everyone is fine. Mental preparation is the big thing for Cody now.

Twice in two games against Galway this summer, Kilkenny have gone behind early. For a team who’ve made such a virtue down the years out of yanking the rug from under the opposition’s feet even as they’re still searching for their mark, it’s something they will obviously look to reverse on Sunday. Nonetheless, Cody says he isn’t unduly worried. “It’s happened to us a few times. A lot of people say we go out to blitz the opposition early, which doesn’t happen. We don’t go out to do that; we go out to play as well as we can. We’d love to get a great start. They’d love to get a great start. They’ve done it to us twice and the same thing could happen, the reverse could happen – or maybe neither team will go mad early on.”

But any idea what went wrong to let Galway build a lead both days? “It didn’t exactly go wrong,” he says. “That’s the game. That’s hurling. You go six or seven points ahead, that’s not a huge thing. That said, all the play was with them, the momentum was with them definitely, but in every game each team gets a period of dominance. It’s how you perform in that period which ultimately decides how you’ll fare in the game.

“We hung on to an extent, which was all we were doing in lots of ways for part of that first half. We were under pressure and they were coming at us strongly but we stood up to it well. They got a goal, but that’s not the end of the world. The fact that we went in five points down was hugely important – we brought it back to four and they got a point from a free just before half-time.

“Five points is nothing in hurling. We just got on with it. I wouldn’t say it went totally wrong for us – it went well for them, or rather they made it go well. We didn’t get the start we wanted, but we worked our way back into it.”

That they did was, for the most part, down to Henry Shefflin. Interestingly, just as Cody says he didn’t – wouldn’t – try to influence Shefflin’s decision as to whether to go for a goal or a point with the late penalty, the move to centre-forward was as much Henry playing by instinct than Cody moving the chess pieces around.

“Henry would have licence to do that,” he says. “I would too, I suppose. I would always give him the freedom to go as he pleases. Henry is so adaptable he’s capable of playing in any of the six forward positions, as are all the forwards. It’s a position he hasn’t played for a while but he loves playing there. We threw him out there for a while, and he certainly had a big influence on the game.

“Obviously he’s been missing out on a huge amount of preparation, early training, for the past while. That would make it difficult for him and you want to make it as easy for him as possible. But he’s in phenomenal shape.

“He gets himself into peak condition and he could play anywhere. He loves that position and we put him there before half-time the last day. Who knows where he’ll be the next day?”

The most interesting post-match point made after the drawn game came from Galway selector Tom Helebert who made a virtue of the fact that every one of his players was leaving Croke Park that night having played in an All-Ireland final. He was only able to say that about three of them going in. That has to be worth something come the reprise. “What he said is true,” says Cody, “and it’s understandable he said it. I said that their not having played in an All-Ireland final could – could – possibly work against them, but they could also go out with total freedom and abandon and tear into it. And they probably did that for a lot of the game.

“Those questions will always be asked and answered but they will only be answered on the field. Who knows what the experience of the last day will do? Who knows?

“The battle takes place on the field and if it’s like the last day, it’ll be worth watching.”

Not a big man for the overstatement. Wouldn’t be Brian Cody if he was.