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Kilkenny manager Brian Cody congratulates Jimmy Barry Murphy of Cork after the game. INPHO/Morgan Treacy
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Brian Cody refuses to blame referee in wake of championship exit to Rebels

The Cats chief wouldn’t be drawn on Henry Shefflin’s dismissal.

BRIAN CODY REFUSED to discuss the performance of referee Barry Kelly, after the Cats’ summer came to a close in Thurles this afternoon.

The reigning All-Ireland champions were beaten by five points against Cork at Semple Stadium, in a game which saw the talismanic Henry Shefflin dismissed for two first-half yellow cards.

“I haven’t been talking about referees for a long, long time and I’m not going to start doing it today when we’re beaten,” the Cats boss told RTÉ television afterwards, “because straight away, it’s a situation of sour grapes and everything else comes into it but I have my own thoughts about that thing, I have my own thoughts about the referee as well.

“And look it, that’s it, it’s not my sort of way to criticise things or make excuses, we don’t have any excuses. We were beaten. The sending off is a separate issue, it’s a different issue that everyone else can have their own thoughts about it. I’ll leave it at that.

He added: “Everyone knows the player [Shefflin] is, everyone knows the game he plays, everyone knows he is a man of absolute sportsmanship but, look it, it’s Cork’s day, Cork have won the game. We’re disappointed and we’re facing what we haven’t faced too often in the past but you know our spirit is intact, that’s absolutely for certain. The players who are in that dressing room now have given tremendous service to Kilkenny and to the game of hurling.”"

“I suppose a lot of things went wrong for us anyway, let’s be fair. But at the end of the day, we havnt been making excuses down the line up to now and we’re not going to make excuses now. The team that scores the most wins and sadly for us that wasn’t us today.”

The multiple All-Ireland winner insisted that the defeat to a young side from Leeside did not mark the end of this great Kilkenny team.

“There has been a few ends of eras predicted over the last number of years,” he told Joanne Cantwell. “I don’t think any era ends to be honest with you. If end of an era means that it is the end of a Kilkenny senior hurling team being competitive at intercounty level I’d say that is something that shouldn’t be allowed happen. So let’s wait and see.

“There is mileage on some of them and there is not much mileage on others. But look it, the team evolves, every team changes, individuals come and go and the team goes on and the game goes on and that’s the way it has been happening for a long, long time. That’s the way it will continue to happen I’m sure.”

And when asked about his own future, Cody insisted today is not the time to make decisions one way or the other.

“I have no idea obviously. I have no idea at all. I feel the same as every other year about it, I have no idea, there is no decision made about anything. I won’t even consider it for a long, long time,” he said.

Here’s how Twitter reacted to Cork’s win over Kilkenny

Tale of two cities as Dublin and Cork to meet in hurling and football showdowns

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