NOW THAT THEIR interests in the 2017 inter-county hurling season has ended, we can sit back and ask: Where has it all gone wrong for Kilkenny?
Last September, they arrived in Croke Park as the favourites to win a third straight All-Ireland title. Tipperary’s stunning nine-point victory proved the Cats were mere mortals after all, but nobody could have predicted the rapid regression that was to come in 2017.
A league quarter-final loss to Wexford was followed up with a Leinster SHC defeat to the same opposition in June. They scraped past Limerick in the first round of the qualifiers before Waterford finally put them out of their misery on Saturday night in Thurles.
It was only the second time in 19 season under Brian Cody that Kilkenny have failed to make it to August with their season still intact. It was also the first ever qualifier defeat in their history. It’s the only season Cody hasn’t brought them to at least an All-Ireland quarter-final.
The black and amber jersey would have traditionally struck fear into players in counties outside of Tipperary and Cork, but this season plenty of sides have enjoyed success against Cody’s men in competitive games.
Waterford and Wexford each beaten Kilkenny twice out of two attempts, while Clare also defeated them in their only meeting in 2017.
It’s inevitable there will be some whispers in Kilkenny about whether Cody has the stomach to build another team worthy of challenging for the big prize. In reality, his life revolves around hurling and the thought of stepping away is probably a long way from his mind.
“I fully expect that (he’ll stay on),” said Eddie Brennan today at an EirGrid event in Croke Park.
“I gave up speculating about what Brian might do around 2013. He’s a man that know his own mind, definitely. He will reflect on it, he’ll sit back, and he’ll probably start with himself, that’ll be the starting point for him.
“He’ll ask himself those questions before he starts looking at the players. And once he knows what he wants then he’ll push on then.
“He’ll probably look at it and say regardless of what happens with the U21s, there’s the nucleus of a group of fellas coming through that can certainly develop. There’s potential in them, it’s just how that potential is harness and developed that’s the key to it.
“I would expect more than ever that Brian will be back at the helm again next year.”
Brennan is right. In all likelihood, Cody’s return is likely to be confirmed in a low-key email from the county board in November, as has been the case for almost two decades now.
It was a strange week for Brennan, who managed the county’s U21s to the Leinster title on Wednesday night. It was Kilkenny’s first provincial crown at that grade in five years. A week earlier they lifted the Leinster minor title. How both teams fare in the All-Ireland series will tell a lot about their potential, but the production line is still churning out players in Kilkenny.
“There’s good work being done at underage,” continued Brennan. “Yeah we hit a blip where you had your Wexfords and Dublins really dominating the underage Leinster Championships, both at minor and U-21 level.
“That was the challenge for us this year, particularly with the U-21s, to get them competitive again and try to get a provincial crown which is just invaluable.
“So, there is good talent there. St. Kieran’s have been leading the charge at Colleges level and CBS have been close to them.”
A feature of that victory was Richie Leahy’s excellent five-point showing and he was subsequently added to the senior panel for the clash against the Deise.
Despite his good form, the youngster only arrived off the bench eight minutes from the end in Thurles. His U21 colleague Liam Blanchfield came on in extra-time, but otherwise no player from Brennan’s victorious squad featured for Kilkenny this year.
Cody has long employed the view that a youngster must ply his trade on the fringes of the senior squad for a couple of years before they’re thrown into the white heat of battle.
“There are definitely good players coming through, but if you look at Brian’s tenure as a manager he has been slow or reluctant to graduate fellas,” Brennan pointed out.
The facts back up his argument. During his 19 years in charge, Cody has only ever promoted JJ Delaney and James ‘Cha’ Fitzpatrick from minor into a senior championship team the following year.
In the past, the exceedingly high standard in the Kilkenny camp meant that new players would develop from being hot-housed in an environment where some of the game’s greatest hurlers were operating.
Brennan added: “It’s been a gradual process and it does take time because there is a big, big difference to playing minor hurling and adult hurling. Certainly there’s a few players there he can do that with. You look at both the minor in the next two to three years, there’s good players coming through there that should be able to supplement the senior set-up.”
But the game is changing and county panels are getting younger across the country. The ever-increasing time demands on players means most county panels are littered with college students and teachers in their early 20s.
At a GPA event last month, former Galway captain David Collins said he believes the average age of an inter-county hurler could fall as low as 26 in the not too distant future.
Clare’s All-Ireland win in 2013 signaled the dawning of a new era. The 19-year-old Tony Kelly won Hurler of the Year, while fellow 19-year-old Shane O’Donnell made history by scoring 3-3 in the replay win over Cork. The average age of the Clare squad that year was 23, with nine of the matchday squad aged 21 or younger.
Austin Gleeson won Hurler of the Year at 21 last year. Players like Gleeson and Kelly are once in a generation talents, but we’ve seen the benefits recently of giving talented youngsters like Conor Whelan senior experience at an early age to speed up their development.
If a player is going to be good enough at 22 then why not start blooding him at 19?
Waterford beat Kilkenny on Saturday with a group of players who Derek McGrath began exposing to the rigours of senior championship hurling while they were still teenagers.
A host of Waterford’s All-Ireland U21 winning side last year were also regulars on the senior team – Conor Gleeson, Tom Devine (who is in the States this summer), Patrick Curran, Shane Bennett and Stephen Bennett.
It meant that by the time they made the trip to Semple Stadium, they were tried and tested at this level. Plus their young legs carried them past the Cats in extra-time. It may be time for Cody to adopt the policy that if you’re good enough, you’re old enough.
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