CATS’ CONCERN
Fennelly move fuels talk of dressing room disquiet as critics query decision to give Cody another year
THE mood music has been downbeat since Colin Fennelly announced his plan to opt out of the Kilkenny senior hurling set-up for this coming season.
It was notable that the decision came less than 10 days after the reappointment of Brian Cody as manger for a 23rd season, with focus returning to a disappointing Leinster final performance when the team captain was substituted in the 52nd minute.
In the build-up to the All-Ireland semi-final against Waterford, he spoke in typically honest and forthright fashion.
‘I was certainly hugely disappointed with my own performance. I don’t think I contributed enough for the team in the game. It was hard to see us breaking through. We just couldn’t break through Galway that whole game.’
The two-time All-Star, a player with four All-Irelands with Kilkenny and five club All-Irelands with Ballyhale Shamrocks, remains his own harshest critic.
But the last line of his statement points to the fact that Kilkenny’s problems that day went far deeper than any one player’s performance.
For a player in the inside line, so much is dependent on what is happening out the field. And the truth of the matter is that Kilkenny were getting battered.
Brian Cody’s decision to replace him with Liam Blanchfield came as the score was about to turn 0-19 to 0-14 in Galway’s favour. In his first season in charge, Shane O’Neill was showing why Galway plumped for the man who guided Na Piarsaigh to Munster and All-Ireland club success. Padraic Mannion wore No8 but played as an extra defender in a fluid defensive set-up when needed. Galway were dominating the aerial exchanges. But for hitting 12 wides, they should have been out of sight.
It took a moment of genius from Richie Hogan to thieve a goal against the grain and for TJ Reid to find the net and secure the 16th Leinster title of Brian Cody’s reign and one that looked least likely heading down the home straight.
Now rewind a little bit to the start of the Championship and Fennelly was one of the in-form players in the country. His near-telepathic relationship with TJ Reid was at the heart of Ballyhale Shamrocks’ emphatic run to a third successive county title.
The form Fennelly had shown in helping the club to back-to-back All-Irelands included a stunning diving backwards flick to the net in the St Patrick’s Day final of 2019 and his link-up play and scoring aggregates with Reid up to the club’s county title hammering of Dicksboro in September were off the charts. As journalist Colm Keys documented, across Ballyhale’s 20-match unbeaten run up to last year’s county final, Reid amassed 9-183 for his club, 6-53 from play, and Fennelly racked up a staggering 15-30 in the same period.
And Fennelly carried that form into the Kilkenny setup, bursting through a trio of Dublin defenders to find the net in the first half of this year’s Leinster semi-final and feeding off the inspired Reid to threaten a rout of Dublin.
That was until the first systems failure of the second half, and particularly the final quarter, as Dublin came from 16 down to level in injury time before Huw Lawlor’s winner.
The questions being asked now go beyond Fennelly’s departure to the Kilkenny management set-up and a coaching ticket that saw Conor Phelan only added yesterday.
Imagine TJ Reid was to follow Fennelly’s lead? That’s the sort of shocking scenario no Kilkenny supporter wants to entertain. With rising young Ballyhale Shamrocks star Adrian Mullen set to return to full fitness, Kilkenny can’t afford any schism with the county champions.
When Fennelly wasn’t named in the starting XV for the semi-final against Waterford, this reporter wasn’t alone in wondering was it a dummy team. But no. Kilkenny were in the midst of a traumatic 13-point swing when he was introduced.
Just like the second half of the Leinster semi-final, this was as close to a second collapse on Cody’s watch.
Not for the first time, Kilkenny looked ill at ease working the ball out short. The Leinster title was testament to the never-say-die spirit that has imbued Cody’s teams. But when Plan A isn’t working, the lack of a discernible Plan B has seen Cody’s reappointment come with a critical reappraisal.
On the eve of Cody’s reappointment, writer and hurling aficionado PM O’Sullivan lifted the veil on the team’s issues, with puck-out strategies and tactical innovation under the microscope
O’Sullivan has been embedded in the Ballyhale Shamrocks camp throughout their recent success and his revelations of disquiet around pre-match analysis and the aforementioned lack of a Plan B are worrying for the Cats.
Here’s Richie Power Senior adding his voice to a wave of questioning comment.
‘After the Waterford game, the feeling around the county was maybe time had come for a change. Nobody can ever take away from the achievements of Brian. A lot of players have played under him for a long time and I sensed a new voice, a new face might get another couple of years out of TJ Reid, Colin Fennelly, and these guys,’ he said.
From a point where Kilkenny really didn’t have an outstanding candidate for the job, a natural successor with a worthy and credible track record in management, all of that has changed in recent years.
In guiding Laois to silverware in the shape of the Joe McDonagh Cup and promotion to the Leinster Championship proper, Eddie Brennan has carved out a reputation as a smart manager, especially when Laois stunned Dublin to knock Mattie Kenny’s team out of the All-Ireland Championship in a qualifier. He has since moved on to Cuala, a club that made history by winning back-to-back All-Irelands, where only last week Con O’Callaghan was speaking of him leading the coaching ticket under manager John Twomey in glowing terms.
Henry Shefflin is the most obvious candidate after his gilded time in charge of Ballyhale Shamrocks, making the transition from player to manager almost look easy.
DJ Carey too is gone from the Kilkenny set-up. He stepped away after one season, leaving James McGarry and Martin Comerford remaining as selectors for the season ahead and Michael Comerford as strength and conditioning coach.
Clara’s Conor Phelan is now part of a management group under serious scrutiny before the season restarts in earnest.
“Imagine if
TJ Reid was to follow Colin
Fennelly out”