Cody clearly content but cautious

Under normal circumstances winning a fifth successive provincial title would be excuse enough for something akin to riotous celebration. For Kilkenny, though, it's more like a call of duty and in no way did yesterday's success appear as anything other than a job well done, another day at the office.

Still for winning manager Brian Cody there was contentment. The narrow and hard-earned victory will at least provide his team with far superior preparation for the All-Ireland semi-final than last year, when the 13-point win over Wexford bred an air of complacency.

"Well that semi-final is still six weeks away," he said, "and the team we end up meeting is going to have some terrific match preparation in the meantime. But we're not going to start cribbing about that now, cause I'd much prefer to be there than not be there."

Cody also believes his team will have to improve if they are thinking about winning that semi-final. It was a satisfying team effort yet he reckons there is still more to get out if his team.

"Of course there are areas we need to improve. We'll have to step things up considerably in all aspects of the game. Where we are now is we're a team that's won the Leinster final. But I'll be looking for a bit more out of everybody the next day and I'll be trying hard to achieve that."

He seems to be getting plenty already, however, out of players like Brian Dowling, the youngster who clipped one of the day's finer points in the closing moments: "I'm sure a lot of people don't know much about him," added Cody. "But his point there was absolutely out of the top drawer. He's young and he's keen but it shows again that it takes 20 players to win a game now."

Cody also offered some sympathy to Wexford, who must rise again next week against Clare if they want to keep their interest alive in this year's championship:

"I would say it will take any player four of five days to recover physically from that game. Plus the team that has lost also has to recover mentally. That's huge as well."

Wexford manager Tony Dempsey was making even louder noises about the issue, a situation he still hopes to reverse in the coming days. "What hurts me most about it was that the game was re-fixed," he said. "I had told my players that they'd be off this weekend. I had my weekend fixed up too. Again the interest of players should transcend any fixtures interest.

"I understand the GAC have a difficult job to do. But so does the Wexford hurling team. And hurling needs Wexford. There aren't that many of us trying to keep the game alive. But with the stroke of a ball the game would have to have been re-fixed.

"The interest of the players must be taken seriously."

There were some other disappointing aspects of the day, most notably the sending-off of experienced defender Liam Dunne: "Of course he was a major loss, though I think if you ask Brian Cody he'd say as well that the player shouldn't have been sent off either. But anyone who's played on Liam Dunne will tell you he's a tough but fair player."

The more critical loss was Adrian Fenlon (with a serious hamstring injury before the game, and so replaced by Larry Murphy): "He's definitely one of our big leaders, and plays the fast ball. We relied on the fast ball today and I would have to say he was a big loss to us."

For Murphy, who stepped in for Fenlon, the big problem for Wexford was their failure to capitalise on scoring chances at periods when when they were clearly on top in the game.

"We were guilty of some bad shooting, too, at the start of the second half," he said, "when we should have maybe gone ahead. But we were in it the whole time. Maybe it was better than last year, but being better is still not good enough.

"But that's typical Kilkenny. Even when they're playing bad they'll hang in there, and we just couldn't shake them off. At the same time they couldn't shake us off. I suppose a goal would have been vital, and we didn't create any real goal chances. But they didn't really come through us either, and in fairness, our six backs were outstanding."

With just six days to recover, Murphy wasn't so sure either if Wexford can lift themselves again for another day.

"Coming here we were hoping for a long championship. Now we could be out of it in seven days. While Clare have been waiting for the past few weeks.

"I don't think that's fair on Wexford, and I can't understand why they're rushing off the championship in a few weeks.

"If Wexford get beat now then it's the end of championship hurling for nearly another full year."