HURLING NATIONAL HURLING LEAGUE FINALS:EVERYONE IS looking up at the bar set by Kilkenny. Such talk visibly annoys Brian Cody and few rival managers will engage in this process out of respect or for fear of retribution. Laid bare after last September's jarring All-Ireland final defeat, the fearless Waterford manager Davy Fitzgerald stated the need for deep-thinking hurling people to come up with a formula to eventually surpass the Kilkenny model.

Maybe they can be annoyed into relenting. The media constantly talk about how Cody and Kilkenny have raised that bar and about reaching up and grabbing hold of that bar.

Yesterday, the National Hurling League final managers from Kilkenny (Cody), Tipperary (Liam Sheedy), Offaly (Joe Dooley) and Wexford (Colm Bonnar) gathered in the sponsor’s, Allianz, seventh-floor boardroom overlooking Dublin Bay, on the fringes of Dublin 4.

“It has got higher (the bar),” said Sheedy. “It’s high and everyone knows it is high. I’d have huge respect for Kilkenny and the way they are playing at the moment. The challenge for us all is to get up there. We can’t expect Brian and Kilkenny to come back down and meet us. We have got to get up there.

“For us in Tipperary it’s about playing them as often as we can and measuring ourselves against them because you have got to play the best.”

Cody was asked to measure the bar. Being forever loyal to the mantra that everyone can be beaten on any given day, he dismissed it all as nonsensical media talk. “The bar thing is haywire as ever. There is the usual top hurling counties in the country and they haven’t changed absolutely.

“Waterford beat us in the league and we scraped a win over Limerick. Dublin were definitely as good as us. We hit a freak day against Tipperary in the first half and the second half we were outscored I am pretty sure.

“Galway was just a whole different situation with their lack of preparation, a whole new management team and selectors for them for the first time and a lot of new players and short a lot of players who wouldn’t be considered regular. This mythical bar hasn’t moved since the start of the league.”

Later he spoke of the day Cork were annihilated at Nowlan Park. Welcomed back from the brink by their fiercest rivals: “I said it several times since it happened, it was a strange situation for both teams to be in,” said Cody.

“You had Cork coming in who had two matches played over the previous couple of weeks. They hadn’t had any challenge match or serious, real-together training under a manager. They had been preparing themselves, a total new team management, selectors, everybody. And a lot of players who were playing probably were having their first real competitive game for Cork; a lot of inexperienced players as well. That was it really. The fitness levels and everything else.

“As it turned out, we had a big win and as the game went on it was very, very difficult for Cork. There was a huge atmosphere there that day as well, about 15,000 people, and there was a curiosity I suppose with the whole Cork thing, having been out of competition for so long and such controversy about it. A lot of people turned up on the day and it turned into a strange kind of a game.”

The Kilkenny manager uttered something new when asked about the increased strength of Leinster, now Galway and Antrim have come in and Dublin are notably improved. “So Leinster is, probably I suppose now, the top hurling province in the country.”

Despite the continued absence of Noel Hickey, Derek Lyng, John Dalton, James “Cha” Fitzpatrick (another sports star struck down by the mumps) and more recently Richie Power we were forced back to the bar and the constant raising or lowering of it, depending on your perspective.

“If we are the slightest bit off or down we are very, very beatable. That’s where we are. You don’t have to jump too high to get over this bar.”

Nobody believes him. The glances of Messrs Dooley and Bonnar confirmed as much. Two men struggling to bring their teams out of the lowly-set bar that is Division Two hurling.

It’s a high leap for sure and Kilkenny’s Division One league final against Tipperary, minus a fully fit Eoin Kelly, in Thurles this Sunday should provide a precursor for what is coming this summer.

Galway hurlers could be set for a massive blow with attacker Iarla Tannian possibly being ruled out for the season. The 25-year-old, a forward who has been ever present for the county in the championship for the past two years, suffered a serious knee injury in a club game.

The Ardrahan clubman is due to undergo a scan today but it is feared he has suffered a serious medial ligament injury and may be out for the year.

Tannian, who scored 1-2 on his return to the Galway side in the final game of the National League campaign against Clare, had been undergoing extra training in preparation for the championship.