All-Ireland Hurling Final: Ian O'Riordanhears a disappointed but gracious Brian Cody give an immediate reaction after yesterday's heartbreaking defeat for Kilkenny

HE WALKS into the room, a broken man, broken manager. It was not supposed to end like this.

Brian Cody, a broken heart, broken voice. He neither weeps nor smiles, only stares off into the distance, at broken dreams that were never meant to be broken. In this moment in his mind everything is broken.

That’s how it is, when you’re standing in the doorway of history, on the stairwell to heaven, when you’ve gone for broke, and it’s all gone to pieces. “And we have absolutely no ifs or buts or maybes,” he says. “Because it was comprehensive.”

Cody sits down, puts one hand behind his head. It seems absurd to be asking this man how it feels. We can only tease some words out of him. On more than one occasion he looks over his shoulder, as if checking the recent past might still come up behind, still haunting him, or else that any minute now he’ll wake up from the broken reality of where he is.

“Ah . . . phew, it’s like everything in sport. One team always wins the All-Ireland final, and one team always loses the All-Ireland final. To me, the better team always wins the All-Ireland final. And that’s the way it worked today. Tipperary were excellent. From start to finish. They got a good start. And we kept coming at them, pegged it back, and at half-time were only a point down. We always kept going at them and then . . . I’m as proud of the team today as I was this time last year. Because to me it’s about spirit, and keeping going. And we kept going. We just weren’t good enough. And that’s my immediate reaction.”

Broken promises, broken hopes. The sight of Henry Shefflin starting the game had us rubbing our eyes, wondering whether we should believe what we were seeing. When Shefflin left the field again after 13 minutes we wondered had it all been an illusion.

“No, it wasn’t about losing Henry,” says Cody, his face turning a deeper red. “We lost Henry the last day. Somebody steps in and takes his place. I’ve always said that. That’s always the way it works.

“Losing Henry the last day didn’t disrupt the team. Michael Rice came in today and was very good. So it’s not even remotely an excuse, or a reason for anything. Again, it was just very, very unfortunate on Henry.

“He came in, obviously, with a serious injury. But John Tennyson had the same injury. They both had the same treatment and John Tennyson lasted the pace no problem whatsoever. So that’s just one of those things.”

Broken chances, broken scores. Kilkenny were level at the start of the second half and for once it appeared they had Tipperary broken.

“Yeah, and maybe, possibly, we had the chance to get ahead. But look, there’s going to be missed chances right through the game, for both sides. That’s the way it works. And a few of minutes to go we were still there. We were hunting. We were chasing. They were six or seven up, and suddenly it was back to three again.

“We were going at them. Backs were driving, driving up the field. We kept going and kept going. So I mean literally up until it became impossible to win I was still saying ‘get a goal, get a goal’ until we ran out of time. Although we didn’t run out of time. They beat us. That was it.”

Broken up, broken down, all over the field, by Tipperary. Did this surprise him, the fire and the fury of Tipperary’s performance?

“No, not even remotely. Not even remotely. I’m saying it now and I’ve said it all along. We’re capable of beating Tipp some days, and they’re capable of beating us other days. And today they were capable of beating us. They were excellent last year. They’re an excellent team, excellent hurlers, and a huge number of good hurlers coming through. They can bring on players that will not even remotely weaken their team. So I’m not surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised.”

Broken targets, broken vows. It seemed inevitable the drive for five would somehow cripple Kilkenny, considerably raise the stakes of their victory, and with that the hurt of defeat. He said the players wouldn’t be thinking of it, but how couldn’t they, when 8,000 show up at their training? Cody breaks that question apart.

“Ah, sure 8,000 showed up last year too. We don’t close the doors, so people turn up for training. That wasn’t anything to do with it, in the slightest. We could have been set up for this any year. People talked about three in a row, then four in a row.

“I don’t see that at all. But I do know one thing for certain. No team keeps on winning like that. We appreciate what we’ve got. And I’ve said that all the time. We never felt superior because we had that run. And that’s it.

“I’m only disappointed because we didn’t win today’s All-Ireland final. That’s what it’s all about. I’ve just come from the Tipperary dressing room, and that’s a terrific place to be. We’re lucky to have experienced that on a number of occasions. Today we just experienced the other one. And we’ll just carry on with it.

“We were out-hurled for quite a share of it. We fought like hell to get back into it, and went in a point down. That’s not a place to be. But, the performance is 72, 73 minutes. It’s about what you keep doing and keep doing. And Tipp did it very, very well.”

Broken defence, broken goal line. “You have to defend, and they attacked very well. These things happen. The goals come. They created very good goals. But it’s very hard right now. I can still see some of the scores all right. But that’s sport. You can never legislate for how things will turn out in sport.”

Because in sport, eventually, everything is broken.

“Losing Henry the last day didn’t disrupt the team. Michael Rice came in today and was very good. So it’s not even remotely an excuse, or a reason for anything. Again, it was just very, very unfortunate on Henry