This will be Kilkenny senior hurling manger Brian Cody’s 12th year in charge of his troops since he took over the helm in 1999 and the awards have only gotten better. However, as they make their way towards history on their quest for the five-in-a row Cody doesn’t get caught up in the hype and instead looks forward to the showdown.
“I don’t worry about the sideshow, I don’t really have time for that, I just concentrate on the team and that’s it.” He understands that Tipp will be all out to reclaim what they feel they lost last year but he sees it as irrelevant. “It could be motivation for them more than us, because they’ll say ‘we almost won it last year and we’re going to finish it off this year’. That’s understandable, we’d have been in that situation ourselves down through the years and done that as well, 2006 springs to mind,” he said. “It’s not the same for us, I suppose because we ended up winning it last year after a huge battle. Definitely motivation for them.”
With Tipp seen as a threat this year there’s always a chance they might win, while this doesn’t faze Cody he admits this group will eventually stop winning. “It’s an inevitability that you’re going to be beaten at some stage, but you try and postpone it, you don’t focus on things like that, and I think it’s also the fact that you don’t want to lose this thing anyway, the thought of losing can always give you a real incentive to win. We can’t get carried away with the fact that this is going to end. It is going to end, I just hope it’s not this year.”
The players are his main concern and he feels they’ve grown in character with each season and there’s no arrogance. “They train extremely hard, there’s no arrogance in them, because if that was there it would surface and it doesn’t,” he said. “They are very committed and focused and they continue to put in their best. We are very fortunate to have this bunch of players.”
There are no favourites in the team though and Cody has equal respect for each player, “You couldn’t pick one player over another. It takes more than one man to make a team and all of them are a dream to work with.”
As for mistakes made in the team this isn’t always a bad thing he says. “I don’t worry about mistakes. I see them as a good thing, something to learn from and hopefully not repeat. A person will only improve from a mistake.”
And when all is done and dusted there isn’t an anti climax after the final, says Cody,
“No.” “The boys don’t bask in it. You just feel great. That night is great. The next day is brilliant. The following day is fairly good too, and then life goes on. The club matches kick in then you just go from there
