A FIRST ALL-Ireland semi-final loss in 15 years during the Brian Cody era and a first senior championship defeat for the county in Croke Park to Waterford since 1959.

These are not common occurences for Kilkenny, particularly in a game which they seemed to have such a strong grip of at the midway mark.

But for the Kilkenny manager, the winners were justified after a whirlwind second-half tonight as hailed Waterford’s performance.

“If you lose the game you can’t start making excuses for it. The better team wins. We probably missed a fair few chances but they missed chances also.

“They were very strong in the second half. They won an awful lot of ball and were very athletic and they got great scores. We were beaten fair and square.

“Waterford have really good hurlers every year, that’s the reality and this year obviously the championship was a different championship. They were very good for a number of years but certainly Liam Cahill is a very happy man going home this evening.”

It was not the first game this season where Kilkenny saw a match move away from them in the second half. They survived a Leinster semi-final onslaught by Dublin but could not replicate that rescue act here despite introducing established players like Colin Fennelly and Walter Walsh.

“We were under pressure when changes were made,” reflected Cody.

“They (had) serious momentum and it’s very hard to change that momentum. But in the end we were still fighting and brought it back to two points. The players I’ve got to give great credit to because they never threw in the towel and they gave it all they had.

“I suppose you could draw similarities from it, because we had a lead against Dublin as well – a much bigger lead probably at half-time and we made it difficult for ourselves as well.

“The quality of Waterford today was serious and they deserved to win the game, that was it. Seven points of a lead, you get a goal, suddenly it’s four and then it’s very, very little.”

Cody does not feel the Leinster title serves as much consolation in the wake of this disappointment.

“Right now you don’t look at those things at all, right now it’s just disappointment in the match that was played today. You don’t start thinking about what happened maybe a few weeks ago. The reality is that Kilkenny hurling moves on, Kilkenny hurling goes on and next year comes very quickly, and that’s the reality.”

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