In one way, it's hard to think of anything very attractive about the Kilkenny manager's job last autumn. The county had just lost an All-Ireland final to Offaly and in the bitter fall-out, Kevin Fennelly became the second county manager in little over a year to quit the job in rancorous circumstances.

A teacher at St Patrick's De La Salle in Kilkenny and a cousin of his predecessor Fennelly, Cody was a paradoxical appointment, both the most obvious man for the job and someone with virtually no track record outside his club, James Stephens.

He was obvious in that everyone recognised in him the intelligence and the love and understanding of hurling which the position would require. Inexperience at county level was part of the package because of his own choice; he had simply never expressed an interest in getting involved and is believed to have turned down the opportunity to manage the under-21s some years ago.

In the words of one observer: "Once Brian expressed an interest in getting involved, the job was his."

A crucial part of his suitability for the role was his popular personality. A quiet, courteous individual, he is most commonly described as a "gentleman". This reserved disposition was a sea-change from Fennelly's blunt, plain-speaking persona.

Before last year's All-Ireland final, discontent was never far from the surface because of Fennelly's clear-out of some of the older players and the still quivering aftershock of DJ Carey's retirement and return. At the time Fennelly gave a typically brusque account of his selection policy and analysed his position with prophetic ruthlessness.

"Changes had to be made, decisions had to be made. We had to get rid of a few. That's business. There's nothing we could do. I make no apologies for doing that. Maybe - fellas will argue - we should have done this, we should have done that. At the end of the day you never know.

"If we win, nothing is wrong. If we lose, someone will find something wrong. There was a lot of flak. But I didn't mind that. That'll always be the way. People pay their money and are entitled to their opinions and I have my opinion. The situation at the moment is that my opinion matters and that's it."

For Cody, the season ahead of him was about reconstruction. One of the key qualities bequeathed the set-up has been a serenity, a lack of division or cliquishness which some felt characterised Fennelly's year in charge.

From this mellower environment has emerged a razor-sharp team.

John Power, one of 1998's discards, has been playing a storm at centre forward; Henry Shefflin has emerged as a forward of substance and D J Carey is having his best season in an age.

It is possible to defend Fennelly by pointing out that he had to contend with Carey's poor form and personal difficulties, that none of the forcibly-retired veterans were making a fool of him with their displays last year and that Shefflin was too young for a senior call-up.

Yet Cody's quiet encouragement has worked and the team is cohesive and impressive. It hasn't all been Dr Good Vibes.

Nonetheless on those occasions when discipline has been required, it has been dealt with in a firm but private fashion. No player has been excoriated or criticised in public.

Maybe it helped that Philip Larkin was his clubmate, but Cody didn't shirk leaving him out of the team until selection was on the team's terms rather than the player's.

There have been other factors which have made the management a success. D J Carey says revealingly that Cody is able to relate to his players on all levels. "He's been up there, captaining a team to an All-Ireland, but he knows the other side of it as well so he can talk to you about both experiences."

His past as a player is well enough documented. He was left corner back on the Kilkenny side which won the 1975 All-Ireland and went on to play full back in the two successes of 1982-83, captaining the first and in the second marking his Cork counterpart next Sunday, Jimmy Barry-Murphy. This presumably informs his familiarity with the trappings of success.

Yet there were darker aspects to his intercounty career. In 1978, in an attempt to halt Cork's three-in-a-row march, Kilkenny's selectors experimented with Cody at full forward. The experiment wasn't successful and Kilkenny lost.

Cody shouldered a disproportionate share of the blame for someone who was being played out of position. On the journey home, one of his team-mates remembers the hostile reception. "He got ferocious abuse afterwards and there were people spitting at him going home."

The following year, Kilkenny won the All-Ireland but Cody had been consigned to outer darkness and dropped from the panel. That he recovered to get his career back on the tracks was an impressive testament to his character.

Whether he has been a healing figure after a turbulent couple of years or someone who serendipitously found himself in the right place at the right time, Cody has this year done more than enough to earn the gratitude of the notoriously fickle Kilkenny hurling community. Sunday will be the arbiter of whether he gets it.