GAELIC GAMES NATIONAL HURLING LEAGUE LAUNCH:IT MUST be the experience of his day job that gives John McIntyre the sense of a good line. "The longer they stay out the better for the rest of us," he said about the continued absence of the leading Cork hurlers.

“I’d been hoping Brian Cody might consider standing down at the end of this year,” he said about the man seated next to him, “but given the Government have just made inroads into his pension, I fear he’ll be staying there for a long, long time.”

McIntyre was of course being frivolous, but the Galway manager – who in his day job is sports editor of the Connacht Tribune – at least brought some colour to the launch of the Allianz National Hurling League.

Cody, a schoolteacher, was quick to correct him. “I just hope John isn’t thinking that intercounty management is supplementing my income,” he said. “It’s Kilkenny I’m involved in. Not some of the other counties.”

As Galway play Kilkenny in their opening league game on Sunday this was all preliminary small talk. Kilkenny will be deadly serious on Sunday, as McIntyre was reminded only last Sunday when they beat his team in the Walsh Cup final, after extra-time.

“I saw again the hunger they have. We were eight points up in the second half, in a good position to win that game, and you say to yourself ‘this shouldn’t mean that much to players who have won everything’, Walsh Cup final. But they dug in, led by Tommy Walsh at midfield.

“That’s the template they’ve established. They’re going to take some stopping, but I’m hoping one team can come out of the pack. And I think by coming into Leinster, the Galway players feel for the first time they’re coming in on a level playing field. Essentially, if Galway aren’t good enough this summer, they aren’t good enough. We’ll have no excuses about the system failing us.”

For Tipperary manager Liam Sheedy the start of the league brings pressure: as both defending champions, and as the team most tipped to test Kilkenny this year. He handled that pressure by putting it back on Kilkenny.

“When I came in last year I thought I had some idea of where the bar was,” he said. “But I think Kilkenny came out last September and raised that bar again. But that’s the challenge facing us and Galway and everyone else, because we can’t ask Brian to bring the bar back down to meet us. We’re all trying to get up there, and that’s what makes sport. We have to believe we’ve a fighting chance.”

With that Cody responded to the idea Kilkenny were always the team to beat, be it league or championship: “As regards what we won last year, it counts for nothing. I say at the start of every year that the usual suspects are in with a chance of winning. The top seven or eight teams are capable of beating any other team on any give day. You can talk about raised bars, but it’s a level playing field out there now. Success for us is the same distance away as it is for those teams.

“But to still be in this you have to have the same enthusiasm. And that’s still intact. The spirit of the panel is intact as well. But there’s no point in me or them still being here unless they’re still as driven as if they’d never won anything.”

In ways McIntyre is under the least pressure of the three, given he’s filling the shoes of Ger Loughnane, who despite all the hype, failed to deliver any success: “Expectations have actually dropped in Galway,” he said. “I think there is more realism among the supporters than in the past. Ger Loughnane came in for the last two years, set targets, and raised public expectations. There was a perception in Galway if Ger Loughnane couldn’t win an All-Ireland with Galway then nobody can. He had done it with Clare, and that will always be his legacy. He brought that template to Galway, the commando-type training, maybe being hard on his players.

“It didn’t work, for one reason or another. But the new team management has to put their own stamp on things. What works in one county mightn’t always work in the other. There is no doubt the confidence of the Galway players would be fragile, in a collective sense. There is a perception that Galway aren’t able to absorb the pressure in the big games. There’s been bad luck and bad breaks along the way as well.

“But what’s gone is gone. We’ve brought in some new players, got rid of some of the older guys, for better or for worse. It’s up to them to take ownership of Galway hurling fortunes, to get the best out of themselves.”

And win or lose, he said, there won’t be any favourable headlines in the Connacht Tribune: “I don’t think any of my journalistic colleagues would stand for it. There is a belief I’m going to be censoring what’s written about Galway hurling. Or as I do the lay-out and write the headlines, if Galway are beaten by 15 points on Sunday, then the headline will be ‘Unlucky Galway Get No Breaks’. Look, I won’t allow it become an issue. I have to divorce myself from it.”

McIntyre claimed he was misinterpreted in some newspapers regarding his views on the new yellow-card rule: “The reality is it’s wide open to interpretation. If you have a referee that’s a little trigger happy, you could end up with four players watching from the dug-out. Or you could have another referee that lets the game flow. I understand where Pat Daly and Liam O’Neill are coming from, and I fully understand the concept of yellow cards for dangerous use of the hurley, and for the tackle around the neck. I’m just bit concerned about the foot trip. It can be cynical but it’s not as dangerous.”