GAELIC GAMES:Pressure? What pressure? In his 13th season as Kilkenny manager, Brian Cody is still relishing the challenges, writes GAVIN CUMMISKEY
WHEN INTERVIEWING Brian Cody the only way to play it is straight. No games. No gimmicks.
We’re dealing with a serious man, and serious men tend not to be overjoyed by the peppering of questions from people who buy ink by the barrel.
Okay, there is one trick used. He is asked the same question three or four different ways. May as well be poking a sleeping grizzly with a splintered hurley. Not wise, but it is the oldest method of getting the best line. Exasperate and then regurgitate.
Chances are Cody won’t take the bait. Chances are he’s already said what he wants to say.
The talking gets done a few hours earlier down in Nowlan Park. There would be cajoling words for one of the “Richie’s,” silent encouragement for “JJ” or “Henry,” and even a mild rebuke for “Tommy”. Like all hurling folk, Cody cannot but love Tommy Walsh. And Noel Hickey too. Men who refuse to die.
The one question that always gets asked at the Kilkenny meet and greet will always furrow his brow. It is always late on a Monday night. Always in Langton’s Hotel, after The Fourth Estate have been fattened (the rack of lamb gets tastier on every pilgrimage). The question is always about The End.
Journalists need a beginning and an end. We want to pen new chapters and close the book on old teams. Presumably, soccer scribblers on the Old Trafford beat shelved this process a while back.
We really should too.
The question comes, of course, with a soft lead-in: after losing last year’s All-Ireland final, did the mind stray to staying or, eh, going? He wearily exhales.
“Obviously it’s your job to make a drama about all that kind of thing. It doesn’t occur to me that way at all. I have been involved in hurling a long, long time, I’ve played and lost All-Ireland finals as a player and as a manager.
“I’m in the real world, most of the time anyway, and understand the realities of sport so you go up and you play these matches, it can be a club situation as well, it could be a county final, a quarter-final, win or lose, the same feeling exists.
“You don’t suddenly start to question your very being. You don’t go away and hide and not want to be seen again for a few days. It’s not like that. Just life goes on.”
Cody tries to explain, but we are like scolded infants. We want to know. Sure, we’re going to ask him again next year. Especially if Tipperary win this best of three showdown on Sunday.
This is his 13th campaign as Kilkenny manager. Forty eight wins. Six defeats. Invincible for 21 championship outings from 2006 until last September. Then Tipp took their crown.
The question is asked again but in a different way. Does he not feel the weight of all that commitment? “I don’t. I don’t.” Exasperate and then regurgitate. We get our juicy quote.
“I always hear as well about the phenomenal pressure on inter-county hurlers, that they have this savage commitment and I can never buy into it, you know, because I know there are players that would love to get into that dressingroom, and the dressingroom of any inter-county team, and they are prepared to do whatever it takes.
“And we have players who are prepared to do whatever it takes. But doing whatever it takes is enjoyment. This is not a sacrifice. This is their sporting lives, they’re in their twenties and they can play hurling for ‘x’ number of years. Some are fortunate enough to get to play at the highest possible level – and that is not tough. It’s a pleasure.
“They’re living their dreams. How people can feel sorry for those fellas, I’ll never understand. Envy them, without a shadow of a doubt.
“The same goes for the manager. I mean nobody is going with a gun to my head or any other manager throughout the country saying, ‘you have to do this job’.”
He catches himself. “Job? You get paid for a job, so it’s not a job. I mean, this is of my own free will, I don’t see it as a sacrifice, or as pressure. If I was doing it and it was putting a strain on my health or my life or putting a strain on my family or whatever and it was causing problems to me then I would be a lunatic to be doing it. None of those things thankfully exist. It’s enjoyable.”
When asked if doubts surfaced after losing two national finals in succession, Cody’s rationale is chiding yet insightful.
“It’s not possible for people to lose national finals if they’re not in them. And if they’re not in them then they’re not doing as well as the teams that are in them.
“We did lose last year’s final, we’ve lost finals before. That’s done and dusted. The massive challenge is to get to this year’s final now. The bigger challenge now is trying to win it. That’s what we’re about. Whether we had won the league or won last year’s final, it’s irrelevant as far as I’d be concerned.”
This Tipperary team are the best Kilkenny has ever faced, he assures us. “They’re just the complete team. It’s brilliant to be taking them on because that’s what you’re supposed to be doing.”
Cody is talking from a higher plain. This is not just about Sunday. This is about an ancient rivalry that has attained a peak of excellence never witnessed before. Kilkenny are “supposed” to be taking on Tipperary.
That’s just the way it has always been. We plough on. Question. Answer. But we’ve got what we came for.
