Cody’s will to win strongest when stakes are highest

Brian Cody was asked at the Kilkenny press night last week about the appointment of Brian Gavin as referee for this Sunday's All-Ireland final. There's a nice bit of parsing in his answer, but it's fair to say Cody would've seen the subtext to the question – 'does the appointment meet with your approval?"

“I would be happy with whoever is refereeing it because I can’t do anything about it,” he said. “If we were to start saying, ‘Oh my God, we don’t want him refereeing the game’, that leads to a sense of you’re taking your eye off the ball . . . but Brian is doing it and that’s fine.”

When he says he can't do anything about it, though, is that strictly true? Is it not possible that the most powerful manager in the history of the GAA knows how to work the angles to his advantage? Take his performance for the media on the morning after Kilkenny won the 2014 All-Ireland hurling final replay, when he offered this withering critique of the performance of referee Barry Kelly in the drawn game, three weeks previously.

Most memorable

“At the end of the day Tipperary were handed an opportunity with the last puck of the game the last day in the wrong to win the game.

They were handed an opportunity by a completely wrong decision. We didn’t speak about it but it was criminal what was done the last day. And people can say that I am whingeing and moaning all they like but I am telling the truth here.”

In many ways, it was the most memorable thing that Cody has said since he became Kilkenny manager in 1999. The nursing of that grievance, and the calculation required to bring it up 21 days later, shocked a lot of people.

A month later the GAA’s Central Hearings Committee rejected a charge against Cody brought by the association’s disciplinary arm, the Central Competition Controls Committee, which claimed that he had discredited the association with his comments.

But “he was warned about his future conduct relating to media interviews”, according to report.

Barry Kelly hasn’t refereed another Kilkenny championship game since.

The comments were so over the top that the next time Kelly is appointed to a Kilkenny game in high summer, it will garner some headlines. So, if we are to presume that Cody feels Kelly has taken against them for whatever reason, the comments were an unmitigated success for Kilkenny, with no punishment.

The last time Cody and Brian Gavin met was on the sideline in Thurles on the evening of the All-Ireland semi-final replay against Waterford.

As the official closest to Cody during the first half, Gavin was subjected to quite a bit of commentary on how the game was going. And at the end of that first half, Cody walked straight past Gavin, and shouldered a couple of Waterford players out of the way, the better to insinuate himself into a position to berate referee James McGrath as they walked together down the tunnel.

Influence

It wasn’t pretty. But from Kilkenny’s point of view, it helps them win games. There’s no point being the most powerful manager in the history of the GAA if you can’t flex your muscles from time to time. And there’s a game every couple of years where the full power of Cody’s personality is brought to bear on proceedings.

Even in the midst of a truly great game that night last month, your eye was continually drawn to him. He had running battles with the linesmen, in both halves, with Derek McGrath, with Dan Shanahan. By sheer force of will, he managed to impress upon his team the absolute certainty that they would win. It was an extraordinary performance.

Most of the time, Cody is dead-batting questions about Kilkenny’s superiority, and trying to convince us of the competitiveness of the Leinster championship. On those days, it’s hard to see where this Kilkenny team gets its fire. New arrivals to hurling would look at this kindly, polite old man and ask where the charisma is, where the cult of personality is, that evinces such devotion from his players.

Status quo 

It is only when upstart teams like Dublin, Galway and Waterford have the temerity to challenge the status quo that Cody is moved to bare his teeth. He is an extraordinary figure in Irish sport, and we are all guilty of taking him for granted.

To try and understand even half of what makes him so successful, you have to try and understand the complications of his character.

On nights like that in Thurles , Cody lets slip that he might just be a lot more interesting, more calculating, and more furious, than he wants us to know.