John Power of Callan, the leader of the Kilkenny attack, guarantees he will be the first member of the newly crowned All-Ireland champions to return to work this morning.
Power's assurance, delivered at the official reception for the All-Ireland teams at the City West Hotel in Saggart yesterday, puts the amateur ethic into perspective. "I'll be up on the combined harvester at 7 a.m., back in the real world, the wheat has to be seen to," said Power who farms a couple of hundred acres with his brothers.
"Extraordinary" was the word used by Power to describe the 2000 final. "Who would have dreamed that we would have 10 points at our backs in 10 minutes.
"I am the leader of the attack but the fact remains that I never touched a ball by the time we were leading 2-4 to 0-1.
"Whatever was happening, the ball was not coming down the middle. It was the strangest match I ever played in and certainly for an All-Ireland final it was indeed extraordinary. But what matter, we won and got the good start we had hoped for," said Power.
Manager Brian Cody was noncommittal when asked if he has got a three-in-a-row team? "The reality is that the team has been on the go for three years and they have done enough training and hard work as a team that would have won three in a row. We have won one and you're looking for something special now to ask them to do any more. Our players realise now what winning is all about and is something they should never get tired of."
Former Kilkenny great Eddie Keher is convinced the All-Ireland champions have been playing the best hurling in the country over the past two years but had not been duly rewarded.
Manager Cody had to be philosopher par excellence to put his trump card, DJ Carey, at ease before the big match.
Carey explained: "Brian took me to one side and spoke to me as an individual mainly impressing on me that I had nothing to prove. Brian said it all, the team also kept reminding me that I had nothing to prove. Brian told me that I was under no greater pressure than anyone to perform and not to have anyone thinking differently.
"Players were told not to try to leave it to me on the day. Brian impressed on the team that I will be there but anyone who gets their chances are to take them.
"We never spoke about fear before the match, the 15 players who started and those who came on were under certain individual pressure. On the day certain individuals have to play well to win any All-Ireland, six or seven individuals played well yesterday but as a team we were fantastic," said Carey.
Keher's abiding memory of the day is two-fold; DJ's opening goal and his spectacular point as he fell to the ground near the end.
Carey recalls that unusual point: "Maybe my legs were gone. Anyway I fell down. Henry Shefflin passed the ball to Eddie Brennan and Eddie passed it out to me and I just barely got some sort of balance to strike. If we had been a point down at that stage I probably would not have gone for a score but tried to manufacture something else.
"When everything is going right it's easy. If they wanted me to take a sideline ball in the last five minutes I'd have put it over the bar."
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