SIDELINE CUT:The All-Ireland hurling final would have been spoiled for many if the great Ballyhale man hadn't been present to grace what promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime occasion, writes KEITH DUGGAN

DID BOB Dylan play Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door during his debut at Nowlan Park? This would have been back in 2001, when Kilkenny were just another excellent hurling team. I remember at the time a Kilkenny friend recounting that an old hurling man, when told that the folk god would be playing in the Kilkenny hurling ground, simply shrugged and enquired if the musician was anything to Pa Dillon, the celebrated full back for the Cats from ’64 to ’72.

I’m not sure whether or not a battered LP edition of Blonde on Blonde or a cracked cassette version of Blood On The Tracks graces the musical collection of Brian Cody but if he is familiar with Dylan tunes, then a line or two from Knockin’ may well have passed through his mind this week.

The starkness of the injury threat to Henry Shefflin meant Kilkenny and Cody were forced to depart from what has become a late August script of low-key, pre-All-Ireland affability in which they look forward to the final with good cheer, caution and modesty. There can be little doubt the Kilkenny backroom team had all but abandoned hope of seeing Shefflin in the parade for what will be this definitive All-Ireland hurling final.

And although there could be no room for sentiment as Kilkenny began preparing for a final of such magnitude, the likelihood of Shefflin’s absence must have been spoiling the build-up to what is a once-in-a-lifetime All-Ireland hurling final for Kilkenny people.

So the graveness of Shefflin’s injury meant that an uncharacteristic abandon crept into the language used by the Kilkenny management when they spoke about the Ballyhale man.

When Martin Fogarty declared that Shefflin hadn’t “a hope in hell” of playing in the final, he may well have been steeling himself for that inevitability as well as the public. And on Monday night, Cody – the omniscient, glowering presence in the peaked cap – never sounded as lost as when he told Brian Carty’s trusty microphone that like everyone in Kilkenny, he was “hoping for a miracle”.

It was odd to hear Cody invoking the heavens for some sort of intercession in preparation for this or any game.

Cody has forged a reputation as a man who leaves absolutely nothing in the lap of the gods. Rigorous preparation, unholy training sessions, hard graft, absolute loyalty and an unforgiving, predatory instinct have been noted as the abiding characteristics of Kilkenny’s four-in-a-row team.

Unlike other GAA teams, they do not go seem to go in for the karmic stuff of symbolic wristbands or indulge in the kind of mass hugs that must remind many a hippy of the best days of the Lisdoonvarna Festivals.

For all the poetry of their hurling craft, Kilkenny hurling men have surely been nothing if not stoic in their approach to the game and to life.

So it was disconcerting to hear Cody talking about miracles and it was only then the reality that Shefflin may not take part in the 2010 All-Ireland final began to hit home.

And that would have been a dismal prospect. It might be overstating it to ask if there would really be any point to the match if Shefflin was just a spectator, but still, the match and this glorious chapter in Kilkenny and Irish sporting and cultural history would have been robbed of a key participant.

Kilkenny have been brilliant at playing down the star-status. They are like a rock band where the lead men are indistinguishable from the roadies. When asked about the merits of any single player, Cody invariably returns to the importance of the squad. The most common compliment he shoots in Shefflin’s direction is: “Henry is Henry”. He is.

And his absence from the hurling final would have been an absolute shame.

Regardless of whether Tipperary or Kilkenny won, the story would have felt incomplete without him. It may have been that thought which prompted Liam Sheedy to wish aloud that the Kilkenny star would be ready for the final. The Tipperary boss must have been as stunned as everyone else by how extravagantly his wish was granted.

Wednesday night’s public training session in Nowlan Park was as close to Broadway as Kilkenny will ever get. There was nothing orchestrated about it but is still smacked of supreme theatre. A crowd of 8,000 people showing up for an All-Ireland training session is remarkable enough. But to have Shefflin breezily trotting out and start training with the squad was audacious.

The conservative option of testing Shefflin’s injury in a secluded pitch or gym was passed over in favour of an appearance which was treated as sensational and, yes, miraculous.

The spectacle brought to mind perhaps the most folkloric of all injury comebacks, Willis Reed (absolutely no relative of the Ballyhale Reids) for the New York Knicks in Game 7 of the 1970 NBA finals. Bill Bradley said of that team, “No one of us was as good individually as all of us could be as a team and we were each a point on a five-pointed star.” The description could well fit this Kilkenny team.

In 1970, the Knicks and La Lakers were tied at 3-3 going into the decisive game at Madison Square Garden. Reed, the towering centre on the Knicks team, had badly torn a thigh muscle in Game 5 and watched the Lakers decimate his team in Game 6. He was not expected to play in Game 7.

The teams were already on the floor warming up when the familiar figure made his way from the dressingroom, hobbling onto the court in the flashy white Knicks warm-up suit to thunderous applause and disbelief. The man was absurdly hobbled by his injury; he walked with a preposterous limp and couldn’t really run at all.

But he started the game and hit two shots before breaking down completely. By then, Madison Square Garden was in rhapsodic mood and the home team won the title. There was something of that uncontained giddiness about the re-emergence of Kilkenny’s favourite son on Wednesday evening.

Immediately, Shefflin’s return has sparked an intense reaction. Foreign visitors arriving in Ireland who may have scanned the radio stations must have reached the bewildered conclusion that the nation at large is obsessed with cruciate ligament injuries.

Everyone seemed to have an opinion on the matter this week. Old GAA warhorses were asked to recall their battles with the demon injury. Chief among those was Pat Spillane, one of the few men to play in a five-in-a-row match.

And right enough, anyone around in the early 1980s will have grainy memories of the time when Pat’s dodgy knees were a matter of national debate. Children then were encouraged to watch as this Kerry wizard made increasingly jeopardised appearances with mummified gams with which he fired over laughably brilliant points.

We said novenas for him because we were told that he might never walk or, perish the thought, talk again. It all ended happily.

For the next seven days, all of Kilkenny will be keeping fingers crossed and lighting candles that Wednesday night in Nowlan Park was not just an apparition. Last night confirmation that the unfortunate Brian Hogan will miss out makes Shefflin’s participation more important than ever. But it would seem that Kilkenny got their miracle. Here comes Henry.