CODY’S TOP CATS

Serial winners adorn our pick of the stars to wear the black and amber under iconic manager

IN compiling the Greatest Kilkenny Team of the Brian Cody Era, the quality comes dripping off the page. As a followup exercise, it would be interesting to open a 1-15 selection up to any other county during the same period from the 1999 season when Cody took charge and see just how many non-Kilkenny players break into the team listed below.

The likes of Tommy Walsh, JJ Delaney and Henry Shefflin are once-in-a-generation type players who make a case for an updating of the GAA’s official Team of the Millennium. Then look at the likes of DJ Carey and TJ Reid and the special place they too have carved out in the game.

The quality of player left out of this selection of just 15 is ridiculously good, especially up front. Charlie Carter formed a devastating twin attacking threat with Carey at club and county level while Aidan Fogarty, Richie Power, Martin Comerford and Colin Fennelly have all lit up the Cody era at different stages. In defence, fourtime All-Star Paul Murphy still has time to increase his claims while Peter Barry was a central figure when the manager first got over the line in 2000.

The Cody Years has seen the honours list alter radically with Cork displaced at the top of the tree and the individual players list now populated with Kilkenny men – Shefflin’s 10 medals setting a new high bar.

This selection goes a long way to explaining why.

EOIN MURPHY

The modern heir to such a rich tradition of goalkeeping in Kilkenny.

Ollie Walsh was such a talent and so beloved by his own that the statue still stands proudly of him in Thomastown, the first goalkeeper to earn the Texaco Hurler of the Year award. His successor, Noel Skehan, went on to set the record for All-Ireland winning medals, his tally of nine lasting the decades until the Cody era and his on-field general Shefflin came along. And yet it’s a sign of the times that Murphy is so much more the best shotstopper in the game but hurling’s version of a quarterback: the first point of attack, the sweeper behind the defence and a long-range scorer from placed balls – just another string to the bow of a player who cut it up in the Fitzgibbon Cup in attack.

MICHAEL KAVANAGH

When the Leinster Council decided to mark the GAA’s 125th anniversary celebrations by picking a best hurling team of the previous 25 years, from the period 1984-2009, Kilkenny’s ultra-reliable and ultraconsistent corner-back was a lock in the number two shirt. Four AllStars, eight All-Irelands and 10 Leinster titles are testament to his durability. A ball-playing out-infront type of defender, his capacity to read the play and sweep around the full-back line made him such an asset.

NOEL HICKEY

Lived by the commandment ‘Thou shalt not pass’. A throwback in a way to a previous generation in his ability to turn the Kilkenny fullback spot into his own kind of Hell’s Kitchen. If you didn’t have the courage and character to match up to Hickey under a dropping ball, then you were already beaten.

So much more than an enforcer around the square, though he could lower the blade when required, his game was a lesson in the importance of doing the simple things so well – catching, hooking, blocking, tackling. A rock whose fearless approach, intelligent reading of the play and composure under pressure saw him spend a career blotting out opposition star men along the way to winning nine All-Irelands.

JACKIE TYRRELL

It took the publication of his book

The Warrior’s Code to give a deep insight into how a defender who questioned his county credentials became one of Cody’s go-to men. The heart-to-hearts with Brother Damien which helped to build his confidence to the point where he became the sort of leader that could get inside the head of a Hurler of the Year like Tipperary’s Lar Corbett. Like Hickey, another hard-nosed competitor whose reputation alone could spook an opposition corner-forward. A supreme big-game player too who had that dash and swagger that was made for the big stage. Has since shown himself to be as sharp-eyed in the role of pundit and analyst with all the same colour and personality.

TOMMY WALSH

A player who has that lightning rod ability to send voltage through his team and his own support. It’s not just the nine consecutive All-Stars that is testament to a luminous talent and character, it’s the versatility along the way. While the red helmet became synonymous at right half-back for Kilkenny, the first five were won in four different lines – midfield, corner-back, wing-forward, wing-back.

The sheer love of the game shone through in how he approached the game – and still does with Tullaroan. Retains a remarkable capacity to win a high ball for someone who could only dream of being six foot. Such a dynamic, livewire presence in the half-back line that he prompted the famous Last Waltz with Lar Corbett at Croke Park.

BRIAN HOGAN

It became such a feature of Kilkenny’s four-in-a-row to see Hogan bursting out from the heart of the defence with that long stride, ready to deliver another ball downfield. The central cog in a half-back line that caused so many opposition teams to think very seriously about where they should aim a puck-out. Who knows what might have happened if he wasn’t injured for the ‘Drive for Five’ in 2010? Another natural leader who stood up on so many big days.

JJ DELANEY

Nobody has ever said Brian Cody is a man for hyperbole, for throwing out loose claims to greatness. So when he declared that he hadn’t seen a better defender than Delaney, well, it said everything about his status. A ciotóg who chewed up opposition forwards and spat their reputation back out again. Like Walsh, he was an incredible presence under a dropping ball, tying up so many opposition forwards who had inches on him. Always seemed to be one step ahead in anticipating the play, his famous hook on Seamus Callanan in the 2014 final replay typified a career based around perfect timing, whether at full-back or in his more natural wing-back role. Again, like Walsh, a player to feature in any conversation when the GAA updates its Team of the Millennium.

MICHAEL FENNELLY

Truly, a force

of nature in full flow. Unstoppable at times around the middle third, he developed from being in and out of the team – even as captain in 2009 – to a powerhouse of a player and Hurler of the Year in 2011. But for back and Achilles injuries curtailing his influence in his later seasons, he could have even more influential. And yet he had a remarkable capacity to parachute into the team with a disrupted build-up and still produce it, being named Man of the Match in the 2015 All-Ireland final against Galway. At the heart of Ballyhale’s modern golden era too.

JAMES ‘CHA’ FITZPATRICK

‘You climb Mount Everest once… do it three or four times and that’s it. I just didn’t want to keep doing it.’ That’s how the man himself tried to explain his retirement at 26, with 13 All-Ireland medals across the grades to his name, a kind of hurling version of the famous Alexander the Great quote about no more worlds left to conquer.

Féile skills champion. Low handicap golfer. DJ. Someone who loved his hurling but loved other stuff, too.

Right to the end with Kilkenny, he remained his own man – a unique, individual talent who showed the full range of his sweet ball-striking abilities when switched to the Kilkenny engine room. He bridged a gap of nearly a century when he captained his county to a three-in-a-row in 2008.

TJ REID

In the first round of this year’s Kilkenny championship against Rower-Inistioge, he casually chalked up 1-16 – just seven points of that huge tally coming from frees. Whereas once the idea of the modern game throwing up an heir to Henry Shefflin felt like a form of blasphemy, there has been a new king in town for the past six years when Reid has been nominated three times for Hurler of the Year and could arguably have won it all three years (2014, 2015 and 2019) rather than just 2015.

Last summer alone he hit 5-83, was top scorer in the Championship, and then followed it up by making the clutch plays in the AllIreland club final to drag Ballyhale over the line - the hurler of the decade.

HENRY SHEFFLIN

The game’s all-time Championship scorer and only player in the history of hurling to win 10 All-Ireland medals, eclipsing the feats of John Doyle, Christy Ring and Noel Skehan along the way. A three-time Hurler of the Year. And yet the stats only paint a rough picture of his influence on the Cody years and his role as the manager’s on-field general. He never claimed to be the fastest, the strongest or the most naturally talented, the sum of his parts made him known as ‘The King’. A ferocious competitor whose will-towin brought him to such heights, with club and county.

EOIN LARKIN

Brian Carroll’s A Hurler’s Life made for great lockdown listening, not least for the list of six top hurlers each interviewee had to pick before signing off. That Jackie Tyrrell picked Eoin Larkin as his go-to Kilkenny forward was a serious nod to the player’s value. It’s hard to call him under-rated when he was clearly an invaluable part of the Kilkenny machine, and another player who Cody had implicit faith in. Larkin was Kilkenny’s hurling version of Brian Dooher or Paul Galvin, a relentless ballwinning presence who put in the hard yards and acted as a vital link man from defence to attack, often sweeping to huge effect around the middle third.

EDDIE BRENNAN

If ‘Fast Eddie’ got a run on you as a defender, then forget it. A goalscorer and finisher in the purest sense. Just look at the 2007 All-Ireland final against Limerick and his flash-bang-wallop job on rising star Seamus Hickey, his 1-5 earning him the man-of-the-match award. Or the 2-4 from play to bury Waterford’s hopes in the final 12 months later. A four-time All-Star and eight time All-Ireland winner, no surprise he made the cut for the best Leinster hurling team (1984-2009)

DJ CAREY

When OTB AM came to etching faces on the Kilkenny Mount Rushmore, it said so much about the affection the original ‘Dodger’ is held, that Carey made the cut. The final cut consisted of Carey who was basically representing hurling, Angela Downey (camogie), Willie Mullins (racing) and Willie Duggan (rugby).

‘The way he carried himself, how he got a ball and just went with it,’ explained hurling curator and journalist Enda McEvoy. ‘Even above Henry, I don’t think any player has given more pleasure to Kilkenny fans than DJ has. I don’t think any hurler in the modern era has given as much pleasure as DJ did. People from all counties loved him and what he did. I don’t think there was any hurler like him in history.’

Not just a brilliant scorer of goals but a scorer of brilliant goals.

RICHIE HOGAN

So good he was added to the senior squad straight out of minor.

Despite his star turn in the 2009 National League final, he had to serve a tough apprenticeship like so many others. By 2014 he was hurler-of-the-year material when his six points from the middle third illuminated a high-scoring drawn final against Tipperary. He made the shortlist of three again the following year as he showed that he is just as influential in a playmaking role as in the finishing role that saw him regarded as a prodigious talent at underage.