It's five and half years since I first thought that maybe now would be a good time for Brian Cody to leave his post as Kilkenny hurling manager.
The aftermath of the 2011 final, when Kilkenny gained a measure of revenge on Tipperary after Kilkenny had been denied their five in a row by the same opposition the year before, seemed like a pretty good time to leave it. He had righted a wrong, emphatically, and his team was ageing.
That was September 4th, 2011. Let's imagine that Brian Cody only took over the Kilkenny job the next morning, on September 5th. In the last 25 years we've had some extraordinary personalities coaching teams in hurling. Nicky English, Liam Griffin, Ger Loughnane, Donal O'Grady, Davy Fitzgerald, Liam Sheedy.
And Brian Cody’s career since September 5th, 2011, dwarves all those guys. He’s won three All-Irelands in five years, and been beaten in another final, with a team “in transition”. The last five years has perhaps been Cody’s finest achievement.
Wait until your team is four points up against Kilkenny in the last two minutes of a championship game this summer and see how comfortable you feel.
Ah, but this time it’s different. Kilkenny are reeling – two league defeats in a row, the most recent one the heaviest defeat in league and championship that he has ever suffered as Kilkenny manager. He just doesn’t have the players. There’s no strength in depth. There’s a problem in the full-back line that just isn’t going to go away . . . come on, is anyone actually buying this?
Wait until your team is four points up against Kilkenny in the last two minutes of a championship game this summer and see how comfortable you feel.
Maybe you’ll be able to saunter out the gate without a glance over your shoulder, secure in the knowledge that your team will ease Kilkenny out of the way. I won’t share your confidence.
There has always been a desire for people to write fairytale farewells for sportspeople – a completely wrong-headed notion that the manner of one’s leaving is what is important, not the rather meatier part of one’s career that preceded it.
Cody won so much, so regularly, early in his career that this has become a topic of conversation.
Best man
Every year, before the inevitable statement from a Kilkenny County Board meeting in November that, yes, Brian Cody would take charge for another year, there is fevered debate about what is to be gained and lost for his reputation by going on for another year. Not whether he is the best man for the job, but whether he should think about his legacy.
The old GAA example is that of Mick O’Dwyer, who won eight All-Irelands in 11 years as Kerry football manager, but stayed on in the job for a further three years, getting beaten by Billy Morgan’s Cork each year, with each defeat apparently chipping vast chunks off his legacy.
Maybe people cared about Mick O’Dwyer’s legacy in 1990, and maybe they still remembered it in 1995, but now it’s barely even a footnote. He won what he won. Those All-Irelands are in the bank.
Cork were supposed to have put a stake through the heart of Cody's Kilkenny in 2013, when they beat them in an All-Ireland quarter-final in Thurles, with Henry Shefflin getting sent off.
The message appeared clear – Clare won that year’s All-Ireland playing a totally different style of hurling, and it was time for change. Kilkenny won the next two All-Irelands.
The challenge looks pretty steep right now – two defeats from two in Division 1A, with Cork at home and then a trip to Thurles to come in the next couple of weeks.
Winning teams are always counselling us on the dangers of ascribing too much importance to victories in the league – but we tend not to show that level of discretion to losing teams in the league.
In June they join the Leinster championship at the semi-final stage, with a trip to Wexford Park if Wexford can account for one of the qualifier teams in the quarter-finals. That looks a much more competitive game today than it did even two-and-a-half weeks ago.
But will Wexford be ready for that? Will they be able to answer the questions Kilkenny will inevitably ask of them?
Will they look at themselves in the dressing-room at half-time, maybe after they’ll feel they’ve hurled Kilkenny off the field for the first 35 minutes, only to see they’re level, and be able to go again? These are all questions that Cody and his team have become expert at asking.
Winning teams are always counselling us on the dangers of ascribing too much importance to victories in the league – but we tend not to show that level of discretion to losing teams in the league. Wins can be written off, but losses are agonised over.
Maybe Pádraig Walsh isn’t a full-back, but I don’t think too many people would be overly surprised if he ended up as our All Star number three either.
Maybe the trimming we saw Kilkenny get last September was a portent of things to come. Or maybe it was the defeat Cody will reference this autumn, when he calls it his sweetest All-Ireland win yet.
