Less than an hour after his incandescent championship debut in the 2012 All-Ireland final replay against Galway, Walter Walsh responded to a question about how Brian Cody had reacted to his return of 1-3.
“He just said ‘well done’ and asked me was I okay for Walsh Cup next year. I said I was,” the Rosberbon man said happily.
Walsh’s remark seemed giddy and frivolous. But it contained everything the public needs to know about the brutally democratic and scrupulously fair eye which Brian Cody casts over his extended panel from season to season. And in hours before this afternoon’s All-Ireland final replay, it has the chilly dimension of premonition about it.
On September 2nd, Kilkenny and Tipperary met for what was probably the finest hurling match ever played, a 73-minute aria of relentless speed, sustained stick craft, breathtaking scores and theatrical injury time drama, all gift-wrapped in the importance and ceremony of All-Ireland final day. Within hours, the team quickly went into hibernation.
It emerged that Eamon O’Shea had watched a replay of the match before he even sat down for an evening meal while less than hour after the match, Cody was clear about what his Kilkenny panel would be doing: going home. Even then, it was clear that he was impatient to be back in Nowlan Park, training and planning for the replay.
The chief intrigue about Kilkenny concerned what Cody would do for the replay. Guessing how Cody’s mind works is a September pastime in Kilkenny, even for those who have spent most of their adult lives listening to his voice.
Speaking on Tipp Fm days before the drawn game, eight times All-Ireland winner Eddie Brennan seemed to be thinking aloud when he said: "You would be trying to second guess what is going to happen. I know in 2011 we kind of identified a few areas of the Tipperary team we focussed on with man marking and I wouldn't be surprised if Brian Cody pulled a few rabbits out of the hat.
Going well
“There is talk that Walter Walsh is going very well in training...there is talk that
Tommy Walsh
is going very well so there could be something different. There is speculation about Henry and I wouldn’t be surprised if he starts but I don’t think he will. He has a defined role this season and it is working very well.”
As it happened, Brennan was on the money. Walter Walsh was named in the starting team.
If the Kilkenny squad has learned anything about Cody, it is not to be surprised. Even for seemingly automatic selections like JJ Delaney, there are always those few seconds of anticipation when they gather for the team announcement.
“Because you don’t really know,” he said earlier this season. “They flip the chart and you are looking for your name and after that you look for the rest of the team.”
The main question for Tipperary is whether they can once again scale the heights of the sublime, almost unconscious attacking game they achieved in the drawn game.
Within Kilkenny, the expectation was that Cody would do as he did in 2012 and ring in the changes. One school of thought was that Henry Shefflin would make a typically dramatic entrance instead of Walter Walsh.
That hasn't happened but Cody has radically altered the line that has given him plenty of food for thought this season. When the team was announced on Thursday night, the rumour of the past week was confirmed: Kieran Joyce and Pádraig Walsh will fill the right half and centre back spots respectively, with Joey Holden and Brian Hogan dropping to the bench.
Centre-back has been a source of unease for Kilkenny throughout the season. Brian Hogan gave an assured performance there in the league semi-final win over Galway but the experiment to convert Jackie Tyrrell into a number six continued in the league final win against Tipp.
It wasn’t until the replayed Leinster semi-final against Galway that Hogan became the preferred choice again.
Above all players, Hogan knows just how volatile the honour of Kilkenny selection can be. He made his debut in the Leinster final of 2004, when Wexford pipped Kilkenny with an injury time goal. Three seasons passed before he had reasserted himself at number one.
“It was a while before I got back into the team so it stuck with me,” he remarked of that time. “I suppose I didn’t think so at the time but it was a great learning curve.”
But Hogan proved indispensable in the position in the years afterwards and, famously, never played on a Kilkenny team which lost to Tipperary. His absence through injury for the 2010 final defeat was noted.
This summer it has been slightly different. In the drawn final, Séamus Callanan caused big problems for Kilkenny on the edge of the square and was virtually the only Tipp’ forward who held something resembling a traditional position. Lar Corbett, in particular, drifted and sniped as he pleased and repeatedly attacked Kilkenny’s middle channel with his elusive, long-limbed running game. Hogan’s virtues – a stay-at-home defender, rock steady under long ball and a good reader of the game – were rendered redundant. The chances of Cody sitting still and allowing Tipp’ the same privileges were remote.
Redrafting a half-back line capable of adapting to the freewheeling versatility of the Tipperary attack is one thing.
Hold out
What to do about Henry is another. His appearance in the 66th minute of the drawn game was later than most observers would have predicted. Kilkenny were three points ahead and even allowing for the relentlessly bold and explorative nature of the match, they looked like they would hold out.
Whether Shefflin was sent in to use his influence and experience to help the team use those last minutes wisely or whether Cody wanted to make sure that his chief lieutenant would win his tenth All-Ireland medal on the field of play is academic. His entry into the match coincided with a frighteningly-timed last burst of belief and imagination from Tipp who reeled off three successive points before almost winning it with that late, long free from John O’Dwyer.
Being a peripheral figure in an All-Ireland final is a new sensation for Shefflin. The prolonged period of bench activity for such a revered figure as Shefflin – not to mention Tommy Walsh – has been the clearest example of Cody’s insistence that past glories count for nothing: training form is everything.
Cody has repeatedly stated his conviction the Ballyhale man has the requisite reserves of fitness and stamina to last 70 minutes. The clear implication is he doesn’t see Shefflin as a starter this year.
Earlier in the season, Tommy Walsh joked a little about how his kid brother had stealthily stolen his place. But Cody has shown no hesitation in demoting Pádraig from the starting line-up also. He gets his chance to start today because of circumstance and because he will fill a requirement.
For the past fortnight, the Kilkenny squad trained in the knowledge that changes were inevitable and although Aidan Fogarty was touted as a potential dark horse to start in the drawn game, it is to John Power whom Cody has now turned.
The lone certainty was that Cody would react to that drawn classic by conceiving of moves to ensure a different flow and outcome to the replay. That brings its own pressure but it is pressure Cody wears lightly. Consider his reaction to that debut selection of Walter Walsh, which was hailed as a masterstroke two years ago.
“You do what you think is the right thing to do and if you’re afraid to do it you shouldn’t be out there.”
