Sideline Cut: Loughnane for Galway: it has the ring of the dream ticket about it. On Sunday evening, the red-brick streets around Croke Park had a mellow feel to them as supporters wearing the most famous colours in hurling lingered outside the drinking houses, hanging on to the last hours of a traditional and vintage All-Ireland final occasion.
Kilkenny hurling fans must be the most mild-mannered followers of habitual winners in any sport. There is simply no mouthing out of them. They are almost as mysterious as the team they follow, fully capable of internalising the undoubted joy and pride they feel at seeing their county triumph and content to savour victory slowly and quietly.
When you win All-Ireland titles as regularly as Kilkenny and Cork do, the sense of joy and pride felt by players and followers alike cannot be as extreme or euphoric as that experienced by counties claiming a championship for the first ever time or after a half century of waiting. That is not to say the emotion they feel is not as deep.
It has always been worth watching Brian Cody on the sideline during those few heavenly seconds before the last whistle blows on All-Ireland final day; another title claimed, another jewel secured for the county. For those few seconds of season's end, Cody throw's his old fullback's frame into a giddy jig, like a man trying to shake off a swarm of bees. He becomes like a child for those few seconds of absolute personal happiness before the television cameras catch up with him and interrupt his reverie.
Although he has been the front man for Kilkenny hurling for seven years, Cody's private nature and his dislike of sensational comment, negative or positive, has made him a very tough character to pin down. After a league game in Nowlan Park last season, when Kilkenny were purring and invincible, a novice radioman jovially asked Cody if the two best teams in Ireland were Kilkenny and Kilkenny reserves.
Cody looked at his interrogator in outright astonishment, his cherry hue deepening and, after recovering his composure he flatly and wisely refused to provide a sound bite.
Back when Charlie, Henry and DJ were fronting the Kilkenny attack, Cody was clearly uncomfortable at the drooling praise heaped upon them. Around the 2001 season, there was much talk about a Kilkenny dynasty, which inferred that there was so much talent in the county that all Cody had to do was make sure the jerseys were fresh and ironed and showers were hot in Nowlan Park. That monumental semi-final against Galway - Eugene Cloonan's last great day out - was a manifestation of Cody's absolute detestation of complacency and of the general assumption that Kilkenny could just turn up and hurl any county out of it.
Equally, he bristled at the suggestion that he was presiding over a fading empire this year, and was annoyed when the low-key retention of the Leinster championship and the weird, lop-sided quarter final victory over Galway were portrayed as merely so-so indications of Kilkenny's championship worth. Although he has not voiced this, it would have been no fun being Kilkenny manager during an era when Cork won a three-in-a-row. He stared that possibility down, devised a mechanism to tamper with Cork's highly deliberate and finely-tuned game plan and he reaped the rewards.
Once again, the Cats will be favourites for next year's All-Ireland and Cody will find, as he always has, a new cause, a new angle, to fend off the complacency he so despises. It is a remarkable thing, winning four of the last seven All-Irelands and still wanting more.
There is no end story to Kilkenny hurling. The same is true of Cork and if a remarkably driven group of athletes, guided by the classy John Allen, fell short of emulating the deeds of a Cork team watched over by Christy Ring, they won't be buckled by last Sunday's defeat. For we outsiders, there is something wonderful about seeing Cork and Kilkenny go at in September but it always feels like the nation is being treated to a private contest.
There is a saying in sport that winning is only losing deferred. And that is true, even for Cork and Kilkenny. But the opposite is also the case. Barring some extraordinary turn of events, we will see the two superpowers of the old game winning plenty more titles in the coming years, with Kilkenny looking better placed to regain the lead in the endless competition for the most All-Irelands.
Kilkenny's quiet omnipotence, with a streaming system that seems to produce countless young hurlers programmed for greatness and Cork's inherent capacity for bouncing back and for winning championships has perhaps not been lauded or celebrated enough.
As they prosper, though, hurling falls elsewhere. Justin McCarthy can be a prickly sort of character but he has also been one of the truly heroic figures of modern hurling, an evangelist less interested in the perpetuation of Cork's strength as he is in teaching and saving the game. He deserved to at least take Waterford into a September Sunday but that may never happen now.
Elsewhere, the efforts of John McIntyre to revive Offaly, the gallant and game term of Anthony Daly with the Lohans and Davy Fitzgerald and Seán McMahon and Colin Lynch in Clare, the sight of a greying Babs Keating taking an encore in Tipperary, the extreme fortunes and misfortunes of Eamon Cregan, Pad Joe Whelehan, Dave Keane and Joe McKenna in Limerick: all these are against-the-odds efforts to try and keep hurling healthy and attractive to young people in counties where the game has tradition but no great haul of silverware and where it is easier to become distracted and tempted away from the game.
Galway, with its robust club competition and its rich under-age tradition, has been the one county where hurling seems to thrive despite the notable absence of senior success. Almost two generations of hurlers have worn the maroon since Conor Hayes last lifted the McCarthy Cup in 1988. Joe Rabbitte, the big gentleman with the feathery touch, became the poster-boy for the failed promise of the 1990s and Cloonan, his Athenry prodigy, delivered some shining performances but not the All-Ireland title that Galway craved.
The departure of Hayes, likeable and laissez-faire in his approach to management leaves the door open for commendable local successors. Seán Treacy's work with Portumna gives him a strong argument and Mattie Murphy's excellent work with the last three minor teams meant he was the strong bet prior to last week. But Ger Loughnane must be the choice. Galway hurling needs a boss who could not care a damn about club allegiance. It needs an outside perspective, someone who can come in and create the sense of 'club' at inter-county level.
The GAA has always struggled to figure out how to accommodate Galway hurling in the superstructure and Galway hurling has always been somewhat independent and maverick in what it wants from the championship.
Loughnane, with his truly anti-establishment streak would at least put it up to Galway that if they want to persist with entering the championship on their own terms, then there can be no excuses. He would bully and dare and inspire the best young hurlers in the county into achieving something lasting and important in the men's arena.
He still has the glimmer in those pale blue eyes. He could turn Galway hurling into a crusade, throw a splash of maroon onto that black and amber and blood red canvas. Loughnane could guide Galway hurling back towards the light. And if the Galway county board does the right thing on Wednesday night, Brian Cody will be the first to rub his hands in glee.
Who could fear complacency with Loughnane on the prowl again?
