TJ Reid is showing why I was far too quick to write Kilkenny off
With TJ Reid pulling the strings, the Cats look up for the challenge
KILKENNY head to Parnell Park this afternoon as raging-hot favourites, fresh from yet another League title on Brian Cody’s watch. In these pages over the spring, I stated that the team we all knew was gone.
It wasn’t said in a disrespectful way, merely that the side seemed to be at a crossroads. Cody has continually lost players over the years but the gradual stepping away of so many top-class hurlers was beginning to tell.
They looked to have no settled full-back line and the half-back line was also under pressure. The younger players coming through were a bit of an unknown quantity — Westmeath knocked Kilkenny’s Under-21s out of Leinster two years ago and Limerick did a job on them last year.
So it didn’t look like they had that strength-in-depth of quality players coming through. At the back of my mind, though, I knew that St Kieran’s College still had that winning pedigree and were clocking up titles at that level.
I watched Kilkenny muddle through against Offaly in the Walsh Cup and didn’t see anything to change my thinking after the opening League defeats against Cork and Clare.
Paul Murphy and Colin Fennelly were away with the Irish Army and while I’m thinking, “of course they’ll make a difference when they come back”, it was hard to see them as All-Ireland winning material.
So I was astounded with the way they came through to win the National League, and in such an emphatic manner. One player has been key to it all: TJ Reid.
Cody has always had a relationship with the special forwards at his disposal — first it was DJ Carey and then Henry Shefflin became his on-field general.
Reid has completely taken over that role. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player have the impact he had on a Kilkenny team over a campaign. It was as if he was a man on a mission.
He seemed to epitomise Cody’s will to win, that desire to prove people wrong, that we are not gone. He also has unnatural ability. Certain moments stand out for me that were simply breathtaking.
In the League quarter-final against Offaly I was on the terrace at O’Connor Park, abandoning all impartiality near the end as I joined with the Offaly supporters roaring the team on.
I had Jim Troy beside me and the pair of us watched in wonder as Reid jumped and caught a vital late puck-out right in front of us. I’d say there was five other players still looking for the ball in the air as he set off and put it over the bar. A couple of rounds previously, he did the same against Tipperary. Kilkenny had mixed up their puck-outs between short and long all afternoon but when the pressure was on, the ball went Route One. Richie Leahy had such confidence in Reid catching it that he set off on a run from midfield and saw his teammate field the ball and lay it off for the defining score.
Then, in the League final against the same opposition, he was the man again. Where do I rate him? We’re not talking about very good players but the top of the tree. He deserves to be part of any conversation about the great players of the modern game, the likes of Shefflin and Carey.
The latter was the ultimate goalscorer. Reid’s game is more akin to Shefflin’s in the way he operates across the half-forward line, his point-scoring ability as well as goalscoring edge, and his free-taking which has been top notch since he took over that mantle from his Ballyhale teammate. Shefflin relied on his hurling brain, ghosting into positions where he could do most damage, reading the play brilliantly and bringing others into it around him.
Reid’s ability to win high ball is arguably on another level.
He’s a ciotóg, too, which seems to make it harder for defenders to get to grips with him. Like all the Kilkenny players, he shares the Cody work ethic.
People talk about sweepers and defenders but watch how Kilkenny’s half-forward line get up and down the field. Setting up his own gym has helped him to develop his physical and athletic attributes.
At one stage in the first half of the League final, he took a heavy belt and looked to be in big trouble. Within minutes, he shook it off.
He is certainly one of the most complete players in the game and if he continues his progression in the years to come, he is going to be compared favourably with the likes of Shefflin, Tommy Walsh and JJ Delaney.
I wouldn’t like to be picking it but if there is an all-time Kilkenny team, he’d have to be up there. What I admire most is how he got there.
Shefflin was in the team from day one, DJ Carey the same. But Reid was a substitute for the first three All-Ireland finals. He almost quit. The ability was there but he needed to persevere and develop. He didn’t have the same fitness and power.
Eddie Brennan got the same treatment. That is Cody’s genius — pushing players to the limit and ultimately getting them to realise their full potential. Even if it means a tough apprenticeship.
Dublin manager Pat Gilroy is very astute, so he is going to have a plan for Reid. The Anthony Cunningham angle is interesting in this regard. He would have had to come up with plan for him in an All-Ireland final when in charge of Galway. I would certainly man-mark him. Walter Walsh is also in such fantastic form that Kilkenny will also look to him to take the pressure off Reid. In Chris Crummey and Sean Moran, Dublin have strong, athletic players to do a job.
I’m doing commentary at the game and really looking forward to it. There was a bit of hassle in Dublin over the appointment of the management team, and Gilroy had to deal with the high turnover of players from the seasons before under his predecessor Ger Cunningham.
He started the League with a huge number of new players so it was always going to be difficult. Danny Sutcliffe’s return was a plus but he then didn’t get the full Cuala contingent back.
They were on fire for the first 15 minutes of the League quarter-final against Tipperary but then seemed to pack up their bags. I wouldn’t judge them too harshly on the League because there was so much going on.
This first round Leinster Championship match is in Parnell Park and that has to make a big difference to Dublin.
Kilkenny to win alright but I expect Dublin to really be competitive.