All 14 counties which will contest next year’s All-Ireland hurling championship have now reached agreement on their new or existing managers with one obvious exception: Kilkenny.
“Next Monday night,” explained county board chairman Ned Quinn, without the slightest hint or suggestion that Brian Cody won’t be continuing for what will be a 19th consecutive season in charge, having first taken over in late 1998.
“All our manager’s positions are up for re-ratification at our county board meeting next Monday night,” added Quinn, “and also their backroom teams. But other than that, I can’t say. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Cody has typically waited until mid-November before reaffirming his position for the following season: victory or defeat in All-Ireland finals has rarely impacted on that drawn-out process either.
In the aftermath of September’s defeat to Tipperary – his fourth All-Ireland final loss compared to his 11 victories as a Kilkenny manager – Cody was also typically coy about his future: “Like everyone else, lads will go back to the club, I’ll go back to the club, and that’s the way a hurler’s life works. And what I’ll do myself then next year who knows, God knows. But I don’t even think about it.”
Shake-up
There may, however, be a shake-up to his backroom team, which consists of long-serving coach and trainer Michael Dempsey and selectors James McGarry and Derek Lyng.
Cody wasn’t making or accepting any excuses for the nine-point defeat to Tipperary this year (Kilkenny’s heaviest final defeat in 52 years), describing some of the criticism of his full-back line of Paul Murphy, Joey Holden and captain Shane Prendergast (which conceded 2-21 to the Tipp full-forward line) as a “very, very cheap sort of analysis of the game” and that “at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what anyone thinks. I know what I think.”
Cody’s overall championship record with Kilkenny, now reads played 84, won 68, drawn six, and lost 10.
Elsewhere, former Offaly hurling manager Eamonn Kelly has indicated that he had no intention of returning to management so soon until he was approached by Laois. He will now fill the role vacated by Seamus ‘Cheddar’ Plunkett.
Personal abuse
Kelly, who previously managed Kerry, stepped down from Offaly after one year in charge, suggesting he had suffered personal abuse in the aftermath of their Leinster championship round-robin defeat to Westmeath.
Kevin Ryan, the Waterford native and former Carlow, Antrim and Tyrone manager, will move into the Offaly seat vacated by Kelly. His backroom team will include former Waterford hurling star Paul Flynn.
Former Cork All Star footballer Paudie Kissane has joined the Limerick senior football backroom team, to work under their new manager Billy Lee, along with selectors Brian Begley and Ricky Ronayne and strength and conditioning coach Barry Fitzpatrick.
Kissane was an All-Ireland winner with Cork in 2010 and also won three national league titles.
