Cats have a life left but calendar is big problem

MAYBE I’m wrong to be looking back but this business of one big game after another, I think we’re losing something in the relentlessness of it.

It’s hard to keep track from week to week, such is the condensed programme, and in football now we’re into another series of it with the Super 8s. For me, it’s too much. But there’s also such an imbalance to the fixture calendar.

As the Kilkenny under-21 manager I watched my players train hard for four months and then we lost one game and were gone from the Championship.

If you’re the Kilkenny minor manager, you will probably get eight matches and if you win five of them, you could be in an All-ireland final.

Both scenarios seem strange – and that isn’t jealousy talking!

Kilkenny are back out against Limerick on Sunday and after going through the necessary recovery, they will relish this chance.

In 2004, I was in the Kilkenny team that lost the Leinster final to Wexford. We were out the following weekend and drew against Clare, we won the replay the next week and then beat Waterford a week after that in the All-ireland semi-final.

The problem then was we had three weeks leading into the final, having got into the rhythm of playing every week, and that was difficult.

But Brian Cody will accentuate the positives this week in terms of the comeback against Galway, he will be saying, ‘We can still be in an All-ireland semi-final in August’ and his players should bounce back into training this week.

When you lose you want the chance to be able to put things right, to learn from the mistakes.

Kilkenny were very competitive against the All-ireland champions over two games and the way things have gone is beyond expectations within the county.

So anything that happens from here on is a bonus.

The main worry is over Walter Walsh but I’ll go against the grain and predict that Kilkenny will win.