WHEN EDDIE BRENNAN was interviewed on TG4 after Kilkenny’s Leinster U21 quarter-final win over Dublin last June, he cut an emotional figure.
12 months on from his darkest day as a manager, the Kilkenny U21s finally had their first championship victory under the legendary forward.
“Look last year hurt, there’s no doubt about that,” he said referencing their shock 2016 loss to Westmeath. “But that’s sport, it happens. It makes tonight all the more sweeter. I was even getting emotional there on the sideline.”
“Why were you getting emotional?” the presenter asked him.
“It means just so much to you,” he replied. “It’s frustrating because you’re so used to playing and you’re so used to that that you’re trying to kind of trust the boys. They were excellent tonight.”
In 2016, he took over a group of players many of whom had won a minor All-Ireland two years beforehand. They travelled to Mullingar to face an unfancied Westmeath outfit in the provincial quarter-final. The defeat sent shockwaves through the hurling world.
Brennan’s father didn’t travel to the game that night. Like many supporters, he assumed the result was a foregone conclusion. When Brennan’s mother informed him of the Westmeath victory, he didn’t believe her. He thought she was joking.
It was a major hammer blow for 38-year-old’s fledging career in inter-county management. Lesser men might have stepped away, but it only strengthened his resolve for the following year.
“I remember being on the bus home from Mullingar and you’re identifying all the little things that weren’t right in the lead-up to the game, things that could’ve been decisive,” he wrote in a column for AIB last November.
“You do look back and say: this was the issue, oh I can see it now.”
County management is a fickle business. Having eight senior All-Ireland medals in his back pocket might handed Brennan a stay of execution with the natives.
“Last year was disappointing but we didn’t get too much criticism, I didn’t anyway,” Brennan says. “Maybe I was sheltered from it a little bit.
“You certainly know that elephant in the room is there all along and we looked at ourselves over the winter and said, ‘we have to do better.’ As a whole the players have learned a lot from that.”
The majority of the 2016 squad were back in harness this year. They exercised a few demons and beat Dublin, Westmeath and Wexford on the way to picking up the county’s first Leinster title at the grade since 2012.
Naturally, Brennan feels more comfortable this year in the bainisteoir bib. Winning tends to help. If Kilkenny go on to lift an All-Ireland title next month, the Westmeath defeat will be nothing but an after-thought. An foot-note on Brennan’s managerial CV.
He didn’t jump out as an obvious candidate for a coaching role during his playing days, but when the call came from Cody he jumped at the chance.
“I didn’t really (see myself going into management) because I nearly got this by default,” he says. “Last year, it was maybe the whole emotion of being asked to actually do it was definitely left-field and I didn’t expect it because I hadn’t gone down that angle.
“I’m definitely enjoying it a little more this year. I had been involved in coaching a junior club in Kilkenny which went well and we won a junior championship.
“Last year was about learning, being exposed to what it entails and encompasses. It’s a huge volume of work. It definitely has given me an appreciation for what an inter-county manager goes through.”
An avid reader, Brennan recently finished Rudi Giuliani’s book about his tenure as mayor of New York during the 9/11 attacks. Giuliani’s philosophy of leadership was summed up by a plaque on his desk that read: “I’m responsible.” Brennan sees his job as manager in a similar light.
“As a player you’re very much worried about your own little patch, getting yourself right. Whereas a manager has a group of 40 or 45 people you have to worry about and make sure each and every one of them is involved in the set-up.
“That’s been the challenge this year, you’re very mindful of everybody’s role and function and trying to get them all to come together.”
What kind of manager is he to work with?
Kilkenny full-back Conor Delaney describes his boss as a “calm enough auld customer.”
“He’s very friendly, very approachable, very, very good to work with,” says Delaney.
“He was part of that four-in-a-row team and he won eight All-Irelands. Obviously he’s a very good hurler and anything you can pick up off him is only going to do you some good.”
The only downside about Kilkenny’s lengthy run in the championship is the affect it’s had on Brennan’s own hurling career, which he says isn’t over just yet. Despite retiring from his Kilkenny duties in 2012, he still views himself as a hurler first and foremost.
“I still see myself as a player in a way, because the U21s have done well this year I haven’t made it to go back to hurl with my club (this season). I haven’t shut the door on that side of it.
“I was still enjoying playing and I still am. Hopefully that’s not shut down either just yet.
“(My last game) was probably last year in the championship when we were beaten by Freshford. I ended up with a broken shoulder after that so maybe the body is telling me something.
“I went to two training sessions earlier on this year when we got a break with the U21s. I think it took me about two weeks to recover after that. You’d still love to be playing, playing is where it’s at. As the uncle keeps telling me, you’ll be looking over the fence long enough.”
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