Another win by sheer force of one man’s character being just implanted into every Kilkenny player that takes the field. Cody’s legacy just gets bigger and bigger. An All Ireland win with this squad is probably the best of the lot if it works out that way. Heading home yesterday after the game I had my usual barrage of scatterbrain thoughts. One random thing that came to mind was Chuck Norris.
Chuck Norris has the greatest Poker-Face of all time. He won the 1983 World Series of Poker, despite holding only a Joker, a Get out of Jail Free Monopoly card, a 2 of clubs, 7 of spades and a green #4 card from the game UNO.
This is a fair metaphor for the chicken shit that Cody has somehow turned into chicken stew. There’s only 2 actual cards there. We’ll call them TJ Reid and Padraig Walsh. Get out of jail free card is Eoin Murphy. The joker and the UNO card are up for discussion. The biggest compliment to Kilkenny under Cody is that, as a rule, we play greater than the sum of our parts. When he’s gone, you’d have to expect that it goes with him.
Yesterday was the closest thing to the 2006 final vs Cork (a personal favourite) that I can remember with regard to the sheer work rate laid out by the players. John Donnelly put in an unbelievable shift of hooking and blocking. Huw Lawlor, with one of the hardest assignments in hurling at the moment, gave up a few points but fought his position bravely enough to confirm himself as the solution at full back for Kilkenny for the foreseeable future. Our depth is pretty laughable, we have players trying to find form that they lost months (Walter) or years ago (Richie Hogan) trying to recapture it. But even if they can’t they’ll still put in a massive shift for the team.
Cody sets the bar for the year in a couple of ways. Firstly, Kilkenny players need to accept Cody’s terms of representing the team or step off the stage. [There were a couple of noticeable names missing from Kilkenny match day squad yesterday that had a good few championship minutes the last couple of years. Couldn’t accept Cody’s terms, quietly gone from the match day squad.]
Secondly since 1999, any team that has knocked Kilkenny out of the championship has, at the very least, participated in the All Ireland Final. Cody sets the bar for the year, other teams need to have enough to clear the bar or not. Limerick cleared the bar last year, couldn’t do it this year. Ref throws in the ball to start the game and Richie Leahy wins a free. TJ points and with 30 seconds gone Kilkenny never lose the lead again.
Limerick did a good few things right yesterday and at times played some really lovely hurling. A number of occasions they would work the ball really well to a man in a good scoring position. The wides were a real killer though. Couple that with such a horrendous start: 2 points scored and 9 points down after 15 minutes is a huge hole to try and climb out of. To their credit they had the heart to get right back into the game. Limerick’s puck out strategy just was not working and any kind of move to a plan B didn’t happen for whatever reason.
The closer we got to the game yesterday the more and more I felt like Kilkenny had a shot. You had the usual yearly lazy repetitive journalism hyping up the champions [Our training games are more intense than championship matches etc….]. That’s not a shot at Limerick, it happens every year. Cody’s era might make it look like retaining the AI championship is easy but we’ve had a string of single year champions outside of Cody. 2005 is the last time a county not managed by Cody retained the AI championship. Keeping your team at the top of the mountain in an era where teams can take a loss and still stay alive makes it so hard to maintain consistent success.
Now today, I feel the same way about Wexford that I did about Kilkenny yesterday. If Wexford bring the newly famed “Leinster Championship intensity” I give them are really good chance of walking all over a notoriously fickle Tipp team. Tipp have to start fast, they can not allow themselves into a position where they have to chase the game. Wexford are built to stifle and pick teams off on the counter, they don’t really know how to play from behind, they’ll stick to their structure no matter what. If Tipp get a decent early lead I think they’ll win. If Wexford drag them into a tight dogfight, best of luck to them, they’ll fucking need it.
Small shout out to the minors too. Cracking second half performance. A couple of former teachers of mine (Mulrooney and Finan) have them progressing nicely. The day overall couldn’t have gone better.
We’re well past bonus territory with this current senior squad. There is no heavy expectation on them in the way there was with previous squads. Hopefully that gives them the freedom to put in a good performance on the day.
I can see the smoke from my window!