KILKENNY CAPTAIN RICHIE Reid believes Brian Cody and Henry Shefflin were always going to command the spotlight for the recent Leinster championship ties with any interaction between them ‘always going to be blown up.
Reid skippered Kilkenny to lift the Bob O’Keeffe Cup last Saturday night against a Galway team managed by Shefflin.
His Ballyhale club-mate had managed him to win club All-Irelands recently and the pair did cross paths last week before the match.
“Leading up to the game, you’re looking after yourself and focusing on your own game. Funnily enough, I actually met Henry on the Wednesday before the game. We were in our homeplace cutting silage. I was going out the road and he was walking the dog so we just had a casual talk and nothing about the game or anything. In the game, there was nothing either but straight away after the game he was over for the handshake.”
Reid, who was at yesterday’s All-Ireland hurling championship launch in Tipperary, described the pair as two men driven to succeed in their roles of managers when asked for his view of the recent post-match handshakes in Salthill and Croke Park.
“Not really. Two men that want to win, really. As managers, they’re obviously expected to win and it was always going to be controversial if there was anything on the line, it was always going to be blown up. They’re two men to be respected.
“I’d say it was in a way blown up a bit too much. Going into the Leinster final, everyone was talking about what was going to happen between Brian and Henry. But as players we can’t focus on that, we have to focus on our own game.”
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