This league is not just important to Kilkenny ? it?s vital

John Fogarty
IT’S in those more despairing moments sports fans find themselves believing history will repeat itself.
You know, when the challenges ahead appear too difficult to surmount. When reality takes a back seat and they indulge themselves in fanciful ideas of their team’s former glories being repeated because of other seemingly disconnected coincidences. Most of it is groundless, wishful guff but sometimes...well, sometimes where there is blind hope there is undeniable truth.
Six years ago, Liverpool FC supporters couldn’t get enough of the parallels they could draw between 2005 and 1981, the last time they won the European Cup. The Pope, like he had done in ‘81, died. Prince Charles, like he had done in ‘81, got married as did Coronation Street’s Ken and Deirdre.
That May 2005 evening in Istanbul was nothing as straightforward as the 1-0 win over Real Madrid in Paris 24 years’ previous but the net result was the same. The Reds believed.
Forgetting Kerry’s piseógs, superstitions are largely dismissed in the GAA as bunkum but that didn’t stop Tipperary followers considering there was a modicum of destiny attached to their 2010 season and depriving Kilkenny a fifth consecutive All-Ireland title.
Links were made with the Offaly team who so famously denied Kerry, that other famous five-in-a-row seeking team in 1982. Like Tipperary in 2009, Eugene McGee’s men had lost the 1981 final to the kingpins they would eventually topple the following year. Like Tipperary in 2008, McGee’s side went out at the All-Ireland semi-final stage in 1980. Increment by increment, they matched one another to reach glory.
Kilkenny supporters have no such solace this year. That won’t dishearten them too much. Their success isn’t aligned with the whimsical.
That being said, the fate of their only companions in recent history, Mick O’Dwyer’s Kerry, won’t fill them with hope this year. Kerry eventually recovered to land another three All-Irelands on the trot but 1983 was a virtual write-off.
And Kerry didn’t have Offaly to worry about again. The Faithful’s ‘82 glory was the culmination of many careers. For this Tipperary team, though, their win over Kilkenny is seen as only the beginning. Saying they’re going to figure prominently in All-Ireland SHCs in the years to come is hardly stretching it. They are alarming beacons on the Cats’ radar.
The last time Brian Cody lost to a “coming team” it also took him awhile to rehabilitate. After 2004, Cork came again the following year when Kilkenny floundered against Galway in that mesmeric All-Ireland semi-final.
Cody didn’t bring in enough new blood, he now knows. Twelve of the team that started in that defeat to Galway played in the previous year’s defeat when they scored just nine points – the joint lowest total scored by a team in an All-Ireland final since 1953.
In hindsight, he might regret not having trialled more of his younger players in last year’s league. John Mulhall was really the only player who came through and even then he was a substitute come championship time.
John Dalton did oust Michael Kavanagh from the right corner-back berth but had been part of the panel since 2007.
Quite simply, there wasn’t enough freshness in the Kilkenny team. It was a key attribute in all four of their consecutive All-Ireland victories although a dwindling one as triumph followed triumph. In 2006, there was Jackie Tyrrell and Aidan Fogarty. In ‘07, Brian Hogan, Richie Power and Michael Fennelly. In ‘08, TJ Reid. In ‘09, Michael Rice.
So what happened last year? Was Cody satisfied with the tried and trusted? Hardly. No other manager thrives on competition but maybe he just didn’t have the resources.
In a county that has won two of the last three All-Ireland minor titles and two of the last five U21 crowns, that may sound ridiculous but becoming a member of Cody’s brotherhood is a terribly difficult initiation.
But in this league, Cody has no choice but to field new recruits and hope they’re up to it. With John Tennyson and Henry Shefflin out for the entirety of the league, Power sidelined for the time being with injury and his O’Loughlin Gaels players unavailable, there will be vacancies.
Other more established players will need reminders from Cody. Eddie Brennan’s drop in form towards the end of last year’s campaign is a cause for concern while Richie Hogan has to deliver on his obvious promise (three championship starts in three years – he has yet to finish a SHC game for Kilkenny – is a poor return for the 22-year-old).
Yes, this league is not just important to Kilkenny – it’s vital. It’s vital because they have to change while winning. Finishing fourth in Division 1 last year wasn’t acceptable. Cody will need no reminding of the co-relation between the league and championship. Two of their All-Irelands between 2006 and ‘09 were preceded by NHL titles while their 2007 win came after a league final appearance.
Cody wants to win this league too. He wants to win everything, says you, but he is putting even more of an onus on the competition this year.
Last season was parked early to make way for preparations for the upcoming challenge. The team holiday, which had eaten into some of their January in previous years, was done and dusted in November.
He also culled six members of his panel – a necessary demonstration that the camp isn’t a closed shop and that he could no longer entertain players picking up All-Ireland medals who may have contributed to them on the training pitch but rarely if ever on the field of play.
While they have reached the Walsh Cup final, Cody ordered that a team largely made of under-21s line out in the quarter-final against NUI Galway as he trained the Kilkenny team elsewhere.
No, the word has got out – Kilkenny mean business.
And they’re not going away. Hearing Power fervently say this week that Shefflin, 32, is going to be around for another few years is one hell of a statement to make but on second thought not that surprising.
Shefflin embodies everything that is right about Kilkenny hurling. But he’s not around for this year’s league. He wasn’t around for the 2008 campaign either but come the summer he returned and an All-Ireland title followed.
Three years on, though, the climate has changed a little chillier for Kilkenny. The thought of Shefflin coming back will warm supporters but right now it’s a faint feeling. They need new heroes. Black and amber Cats to cross their paths.

 

Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/HlMrY6Q-nko/post.aspx

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