The buzz is still there ..I’ll know when it’s time to get out of here
CATS ICON CODY ENJOYING GAME AS MUCH AS EVER
THE FIRE still burns within Brian Cody as he approaches his 20th Championship as Kilkenny manager.
After two games of this year’s League campaign, the Cats were still to win a point and that was on the back of fearful prophecies for a team shorn of experience and leaders and in transition.
Oh ye of little faith – a new-look Kilkenny were crowned as League champions for the 18th time on April 8, and suddenly they’re the team to beat again.
“You play the game that’s in front of you, whatever cards you have,” said Cody, holding court at yesterday’s Leinster Championship launch at Mckee Barracks in Dublin.
“We obviously had a big turnover of players over the last number of years. Transition was the word being used all the time. “There was a changeover of personnel – that doesn’t mean there’s a changeover of everybody involved in it.” Cody could have ended his remarkable service in the Cats’ hot-seat last summer, after Kilkenny lost in the qualifiers to Waterford. He decided to stay, even if it many believed a hard rain was coming for the Cats.
“Yes, that was the expectation,” he said. “Obviously there’s no point in me thinking like that. “If I was to start thinking that, ‘Ah really, we’re going to take a few years to come back’, that wouldn’t make sense. I know the players we have – they’re good players that I have belief in and trust in.”
Now 63, the question is how can he stop his approach, his philosophy, from going stale? Laughing, Cody replied: “I think people might think I’m a bit stale as a coach for some reason because of the way the game is going.
“Look, I don’t think too much of those things at all. The only reason I’m doing this is because I enjoy it and I like the challenge of doing it, and I’m working with a terrific management team.
“Then there’s the players, who are completely committed.
“Then obviously the training and the preparation takes place and match day arrives, that’s a terrific challenge as well.
“It was always terrific to experience when I was a player. Now it’s the same thing, having that responsibility and that challenge every time you go out.”
So Cody has never lost that buzz on the sideline?
“I always said when that day comes, when that question mark comes into my head, I’ll suddenly be telling myself, ‘It’s time to get out of here’,” he said.
“No, that hasn’t arrived. People make a lot of it and wonder why you’re doing this and talk about the stresses and strains and I don’t see it like that at all.
“I don’t feel the stress of this thing. There’s a challenge and there’s a buzz.
“The challenge is great, you’re exercising and you’re preparing for it. But it’s enjoyment and if it ever ceases to be then you’re better off getting out.”
There’s been plenty of talk since the League about how Kilkenny have changed their game to give these younger players more freedom to play.
Cody is bemused by it. “It’s like as if we weren’t able to play hurling before, that we were playing a game that was different altogether,” he scoffed.
“Our players have never been sent out to stick rigidly to a way of playing.
“The game has become more tactical now but there’s no masterplan.”
CODY ON SHC REVAMP: It’s unknown, it’s different, it’s challenging. I’m not going to start pontificating until we see it. Preparation for games will involve recovery more than training. Injuries will play a part...