Ciarán Murphy: Kilkenny boss Brian Cody a serial winner straight from central casting

It was his birthday this week; on Tuesday he turned 68. He has been Kilkenny manager since November 16th, 1998 and there has never been a year where we think we found out more about Brian Cody than 2022.

If his team go on to win the All-Ireland hurling final this weekend, it will be his 12th as manager. If that happens he may well say afterwards that it was his sweetest, and you’d hardly blame him. The gap from the last one is seven years, which is an eternity in Kilkenny at the best of times, let alone after the orgy of success that Cody has overseen since he took over.

He was 46 years old when Kilkenny won their first All-Ireland under him, but he always seemed older than that. From that first win in 2000, Cody has cultivated a public image that has been particularly inscrutable, even by the standards of GAA managers.

He was a national school principal before he retired, and never has a career seemed more ideally matched to a person. To those of us who went to a country national school, it seemed the job specification precluded all but the most no-nonsense men and women of a certain age and a certain conservative outlook — a serious demeanour befitting a serious job. For that role, Brian Cody is straight from central casting.

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For 15 years, results brooked no argument. Pretenders came along, took a few swipes, and even landed a few blows, but were eventually subdued and subjugated. Galway beat Kilkenny in All-Ireland semi-finals in 2001 and 2005, but the bill for those results came due and in short order.

Cork were men on a mission in 2004, but by the time the 2006 final came around, Kilkenny were ready to end them as a team. Tipperary stopped the Drive For Five in 2010 but were made to suffer in 2011. And 2012.

Clare won a shimmering All-Ireland title in 2013. Davy Fitzgerald has changed the game, they said. Kilkenny won the next two All-Irelands.

No one had an answer to Kilkenny, and no one could question Cody. In the ‘00s, they had the greatest team of all time. In the first half of the ‘10s, they were obviously nowhere near that level, but they were still good enough to win four All-Irelands in five years.

Cody’s post-match interviews were usually bracingly simple. Hurling is a simple game

Cody’s post-match interviews were usually bracingly simple. Hurling is a simple game. Hurling is still about being able to win your own ball, beat your opponent and outwork them. The more people tried to complicate it, the simpler Cody explained it to us.

And then, something turned. Tipperary beat them decisively in 2016. Galway and Wexford started to get the upper hand in Leinster. Then Limerick emerged. Suddenly no one feared Kilkenny. There was a bad guy stalking the hurling world and it was wearing green.

Cody discovered that playing in a straight-up, manly, simple style when you no longer have the best hurlers in the country is not a lot of fun. And even 11 All-Ireland titles get forgotten about, particularly close to home.

So we come to 2022 and the sight of Kilkenny playing through the lines. Eoin Murphy carefully picking out short and medium-length puck-outs. Corner backs drilling short passes 20 yards to wing-backs. Wing backs advancing 20 yards with the ball on their stick and picking out a diagonal pass to an inside forward’s advantage.

Richie Reid doing a passable impression of Declan Hannon. Adrian Mullen shuttling between the full-forward line and midfield; 21st-century movement in Cody’s Kilkenny — the great immovable object of Irish sport.

Was this all Cody’s idea? Or have a team gotten to an All-Ireland final playing a style of hurling with which their own manager disagrees? The first question seems unlikely, but the second is absurd.

He may not have designed the game-plan in intricate detail, but he has accepted the necessity of it. And whatever about any personal misgivings he may have had about the direction of travel for hurling in the past couple of years, he’s delivered the key messages about this style of play with enough conviction to get this team to an All-Ireland final this year.

That was a level of tactical innovation we thought beyond him. But if he has proven more flexible than might have been anticipated in that respect, his refusal to go over and shake Henry Shefflin’s hand at the end of the Leinster final is a stain on his reputation. There’s just no other way of putting it.

“Hurling people” will tell you that it was a storm in a tea cup, that it was a distraction. This is what people who are deeply uncomfortable talking about a particular thing say in lieu of an opinion. Plenty of non-hurling people saw the same thing everyone else saw and thought it was boorish and that it lacked class.

People made up their minds about Cody at that moment and it was not favourable. His team this year have spoken eloquently on his behalf, his actions too. He sails on, not serenely, but with complete conviction. If he’s learned anything in the last 20 years, it’s that winning ends the argument. He’ll bank on that continuing this Sunday.