It is fair to speculate that Brian Cody particularly enjoys results that confound poor expectations of his teams. For most of his 20-year tenure, Kilkenny were hardly ever outsiders and when they were they hardly ever lost.
Things have changed a bit nowadays but in forcing the Leinster final against defending champions Galway to a replay, they gave a substantially better account of themselves than when losing the round-robin fixture between the teams in May.
“No doubt about that,” said Cody. “The last day we were competitive to an extent, I suppose but in the end, they did pull away very, very well. You were expecting them to do that again today a few times but we rallied well and kept the battle going.
“They will be warned now. When you are being talked up as really hot favourites as they were, sometimes, it can lead to a small bit of complacency. I am not saying that they were. But they are the top team, they are the ones with all the hurlers and they are going to be so difficult to beat again. We are not at that level yet.”
His Galway counterpart Micheál Donoghue was notably more vexed by the afternoon and his side’s error rate and he echoed Cody’s thoughts.
“Our boys are human and I think over the last number of weeks people have been getting carried away. That was the most intense game we’ve had in a while and I’ve no doubt that we’ll refocus and regroup.”
Had he been surprised that his team’s customary strength in the air had been so challenged?
“They’re strong as well but there are areas we could have varied a lot more. Our game management wasn’t as good as other days but you’re going to have days like that and once you take learnings from it, and we will, and analyse it properly we should improve.”
They move on to Thurles, as Croke Park is booked for concerts next weekend, leading the Kilkenny manager into the largely uncharted territory of quippery.
“Who’s taking part in that concert?” he enquired.
Michael Buble.
“Oh, he played special junior in his time out here.”
