Cody is not wide of the mark

After the calm, the storm. Brian Cody leans against the wall in the Kilkenny dressing-room in familiar pose. He looks tired and happy. The past month has been as draining as ever he can have known but the end result is the same. Kilkenny return to an All-Ireland final and have probably picked up even greater self-knowledge along the way. He considers another tense and gripping afternoon of hurling that finished Kilkenny's way yet again.

"Ah, I wasn't sure if the final whistle was gone and there was massive relief. It was a savage game - a savagely good game. I won't say we were hanging on but Waterford were applying serious pressure and there is always the danger of a late goal in these games."

It has been an unforgettable season for Cody already, more visceral than his previous summers with Kilkenny. They have been taken to the edge on the field and at times taken to task off it but, if anything, the team appear to grow stronger.

You wonder if the heat of it all sometimes gets to Cody, if he tires a little of the criticism, veiled or otherwise, that comes with the post.

"Criticism? Ah, I am only doing what I am doing. I love hurling you see, and if you love hurling you love being here. Critics don't come into it. I am only going ahead and doing this thing - ah, we are doing alright. And if we had to play again next Sunday, I would say those boys in there could recover."

One of the notable statistics in Kilkenny's game here was the number of missed shots - 16 in all. Cody shrugs happily at this news.

"I love us getting wides because if we are not, we are not creating chances. Some of those were close, could have been points. Like, I preach to the boys always, just create chances, create chances, create chances. And we won't score them all - when it goes wide I think - shoulda been, mighta been, whatever. But when you are scoring wides, you are on the ball."

Across the way, Henry Shefflin is considering the same thing. His eye still bruised and puffy, with a pencil-thin scar running down like a tear, he talks about what has been a strange week in his life. Rushed from the field of play against Clare with a serious eye injury, he was back on song just a week later.

"Ah, the eye is grand," he says like a man well used to such enquiries. "Though you wouldn't say that in the second half when I was driving all the wides. But I must thank the medical people and all the support I got, from old ladies to young kids in Kilkenny. It was terrific. It was just great to get playing again. The doctor told me I was lucky - I took the full belt in the eye and that is a serious part of the body. But I got the all-clear and had a few pucks on Friday night."

Justin McCarthy breezed through the catacombs of Croke Park and talked of what might have been in unsentimental fashion.

"We just couldn't get the vital goal," he grimaced. "Like, we had them rattled in the last seven or eight minutes. But we came up against a solid team that has really come together over the past few games. We all want to win All-Irelands but there are some good teams around and Kilkenny is one of those."

So one more game for Kilkenny. The biggest for a century.

"It is a scenario you die for," said Cody.

"It's an All-Ireland final. There is no drudgery for this.

"It is a heaven-on-earth scenario for the players to come in and train for this."