For the second time this decade Brian Cody’s Kilkenny have been denied a three-in-a-row.
While 2013 ended against Cork at the quarter-final stage, this year’s attempt at a trilogy went all the way to the final day, only to be thwarted emphatically by a rampant Tipperary side – the same county that denied Kilkenny’s historic ‘Drive for Five’ back in 2010.
Of course, 11 All-Irelands in 18 years is a good return and no doubt Cody and his Cats will come again, but the Kilkenny manager was phlegmatic in defeat on Sunday.
Rudyard Kipling would be delighted with Cody’s reaction to triumph and disaster because he really does treat these two imposters the same. You will never hear Brian Cody crowing when Kilkenny win but, similarly, when they lose he is magnanimous in defeat.
The man, the myth, the legend #AllIrelandFinal https://t.co/aSLy2iCLVr
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He had some excuses in the shape of Michael Fennelly’s injury, the disruption caused by Eoin Murphy’s fitness issues and, of course, the rather large exodus of players he has had to cope with in the past few years that has left his squad looking very shallow.
However he was not interested in looking for any cop outs. Instead he praised his players for how they battled to the end as Tipperary eventually ran out nine-point winners, 2-29 to 2-20.
“There are no excuses,” he said. “You have to fight it out to the bitter end and they did fight it out to the bitter end. We weren’t narrowing the gap enough.”
Between them Tipperary’s full-forward line of John ‘Bubbles’ O’Dwyer, Séamus Callanan and John McGrath scored 2-21 (2-15 from play) but Cody said he never had any intention of making changes in his full-back line, saying there were greater issues at work than the performances of Paul Murphy, Joey Holden and Shane Prendergast.
“When a full-forward line is on top it is not always a question of what is up with the full-back line either. It is a team game and everyone talks about defending all over the field. I certainly wouldn’t be pointing the finger at anybody, their full-forward line are very talented. There is no doubt about that but our full-back line has done wonderful work for us many, many times,” he said.
“It is a collective thing – right throughout the field, management, sideline. We win together, we lose together and today we lost together.”
He will be back.
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