Giant of the game who likes to keep things simple

All-Ireland SHC Semi-final: Gavin Cummiskey talks to Kilkenny's most feared forward.

Elite sportsmen tend to get quite dismissive when queried about what has gone before. Especially when an All-Ireland semi-final is on the horizon and their team has been well below par for quite some time.

Henry Shefflin is still playing hurling from a different stratosphere, but the last time he reminded everyone who is the deadliest stick merchant of them all was against Sunday's opponents over 12 months ago. He scored 2-11 from the full-forward line, positioned there supposedly because he was recovering from injury.

Before any mention of the 19-point spanking Kilkenny handed Galway, like a mother to an unruly brat, is raised, Shefflin plays it down. "You are going to have the odd game every year where a team is going to have a very good day and the others are not. That just happens. Teams are so well prepared now that there is so little between anyone."

True. And Clare backed up that assertion last weekend, but you really did murder Galway so what has changed in the interim?

"If Galway play the way they played in the last 20 minutes against Tipperary, and we play the way we played in the last two championship matches, there is only going to be one winner.

"I think Galway are a very good team. We were very worried about them last year down in Thurles. We caught them on a bad day and it was one of our best performances of the last number of years."

The shakedown has changed though. Galway have suddenly twanged the confidence cord while Kilkenny are way off the expected black and amber dash.

In response to scrambling past Limerick, Brian Cody shut the gates of Nowlan Park. Mention of this gets the glazed-over stare, but as the numbers swelled in the stands midweek so did the hyenas hanging around in search of signatures or shorts or socks or broken hurls. Anything at all.

It was a backlash to the reputation these famous played-at-a-championship-like-pace Kilkenny sessions had generated.

"A few people have said this to me. It's not a big thing at all to be honest.

"I suppose we had a big crowd in and its great to have a crowd in training, but I suppose there was a small bit of distraction with it. Brian just saw it as that. We just needed to focus more and the management came to the decision. Not a big thing, every team trains behind closed doors."

The media jumped all over this on a slow Tuesday following the Limerick game, but Shefflin refuses to think too deeply about his trade.

"Hurling is a simple game. It's about hunger, it's about getting to the ball first, it's about working hard. If you can do those things very well, and are mentally strong, you will be thinking that bit quicker or cuter than your man. That's what it is all about.

"At the moment, we are not going very well. That's not taking away from Limerick's performance as they played very well on the day. They probably didn't play as well in the first half and if they had we probably wouldn't be looking forward to an All-Ireland semi-final.

"We were disappointed individually and team wise. I suppose that is a good way to be without losing a match, but we know if we don't improve we are not going to be in the All-Ireland final. Simple as that."

When asked last week, before Clare scared the living daylights out of Cork, how he thought that game would pan out, he plumped for a draw.

A draw! Come on.

"I know you might be saying to yourself 'he is sitting on the fence', but at 8 to 1, or even 10 to 1, I might have a look at it myself," he said at the time. "I think there will be a puck of a ball in it on either side."

When Colin Lynch's shot drifted wide from a difficult angle this assertion proved correct. Six inches to the left and Shefflin would have won his money. Now it's hard to know whether he was just fobbing off the question or giving one of the most prophetic analyses of the year.

We'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

It would be foolish not to.