Victorious Kilkenny hurling manager Brian Cody will wait a couple of weeks before deciding whether to continue in the position.

Keen to minimise the news value of his pause for thought, he pointed out that he always takes his time before committing for a further year, which will entail the quest for the county's first three-in-a-row in over 90 years.

"I'm not trying to make a story about myself," he said at the team's headquarters, Dublin's Burlington Hotel, yesterday morning. "Like nearly all the other years I was involved, I've never thought what I would do the next year.

"The danger is that people think you just flick a switch and there's a carnival in Kilkenny. That's not the real world. We've had our good times - and are having them - but we've had our bad times too. We all remember 1992 and 1993. There were carnivals then as well but the next carnival was 2000.

"You can't buy the feeling that you have right now. It's been like having a hurling career all over again even though I can't have it. I loved it and I love it still but I'll still think long and hard about whether I'll go again. Because at the end of the day the team has to be brought further to keep Kilkenny hurling serious.

"I don't want to drag this out either and I'll make my mind up over the next few weeks."

Sunday yielded the first back-to-back All-Ireland wins since Kilkenny themselves last did it 10 years ago. It was a major achievement for Cody, giving him three All-Irelands in five years in charge, in which period he has constantly refreshed the team and panel, recovering from a shock defeat in his first year.

That setback in the 1999 final against Cork haunted Kilkenny in the lead-up to the weekend,with the same opposition waiting and the same sort of bookies' odds about the fixture. It was both an opportunity for Kilkenny to set the record straight and a source of apprehension for Cody.

"To have lost would have been a major, major blow. It would have made bits of the things we had achieved and that's being honest, because 1999 is a short time ago and it lived in our memories. There's no point saying it didn't - it lived in mine.

"To start off by losing to Cork in the final and to finish up four years later with the same thing happening again - if we had lost, the skill of the team would never have been questioned. What would have been questioned was their toughness, their heart and ability to grind and battle."

Those qualities were the very ones needed in the closing stages of Sunday's final. With Cork storming back into the match and overturning a six-point half-time deficit in the third quarter, the momentum was against the champions and Cody was all too aware of the fact.

"There were shades of 99 alright. There's no point in saying you were on the line with no worries, no fears. Of course you had worries and fears but you also knew they were never going to die. That's the one thing I was certain about.

"We've been up around the top since 1998 contesting All-Ireland finals. It's very hard to keep doing that when every time you go out there's a team in the long grass. They weren't going to go away just because we got a six-point lead. That's nothing in hurling. We said that at half-time.

"I knew the way the players had trained, the way they had carried themselves all year, that the great thing about them is that they're ambitious, they're tuned in, they're bright and they're intelligent.

"They know what they want and they realise they're living in a good era and realise they could have been around when things weren't as good."

Cody has particular praise for DJ Carey, who by his own standards has had a quiet year on the scoreboard. "People may say how did DJ Carey play. He fought like a dog all over the field. He got in tackles, was dragged and mauled but he just kept at it. He's the quintessential team player because he's never interested in being 'man of the match'. He just works and works and works. We're going to miss him in a few years' time because he's not going to be able to keep going forever."

A turning point in the match was the introduction of two replacements for the final 10 minutes. Richie Mullally had been the county's best player during the league while Andy Comerford captained last year's All-Ireland winners and gave Cody one of his most striking images of the frantic endgame.

"A vital ball in the middle of the field and two Corkmen ready to pull," he says. "Andy couldn't get his hurl because it was caught so he just put his foot in there and took the full blow of the two hurls and didn't even wince."

The manager doesn't wince when asked about the residue of last June's controversial departure from the panel of captain Charlie Carter in frustration at his inability to secure a place on the starting 15.

Asked had he sympathy for the player, Cody set out his position.

"Like managing anything, decisions are going to have to be taken and dealing with them through the media is never the best way of handling things. Any situation that arose we just dealt with it as we felt was best for Kilkenny hurling.

"I wouldn't claim for one second that everything I did was correct but my abiding thing is that I will do what I think is best."