HISTORY. Inexorably, inevitably, crushingly Kilkenny rolled on into an other All-Ireland final yesterday, their search for a fourth title in succession still on despite yet another game where they absorbed a shellacking but came through.
Atonement: Waterford lost but there was so much retrieved honour in this defeat that they left Croke Park disappointed but proud, mulling over missed chances and the fact that the slightest crack in concentration over 70 minutes against Kilkenny comes with an absurd cost.
Last September the All-Ireland final was dead almost before the Artane Boys Band had scuttled from the pitch after the anthem. Kilkenny were irrepressible and merciless. Waterford had one of those days when the collective nervous system of the team just froze.
Yesterday we were offered a semi-final we weren’t sure we wanted but from the time of Waterford’s first goal after just four minutes we knew we were being given a game of quality. Waterford scored three goals and should have scored at least a fourth, they threw over a few too many wides and once or twice too often they took the wrong option but they left the field with all the honour and credit they have built up over the last decade intact.
In the end the margin would be five points (2-23 to 3-15) but to reach shore Kilkenny had to row hard and bail water fast. A sublime save near the end from PJ Ryan in the Kilkenny goal denied Eoin Kelly what would have been the goal of the season, a wristy volley struck beautifully from 21 yards out, and deprived us of the sort of finish which would have caused cardiac arrests.
Possibly no neutrals love a team who are closing in on their fourth title in a row.
The romance is thin and familiarity breeds a certain weariness. Yet there is something defiantly heroic about the manner in which Kilkenny have absorbed the most physical challenges imaginable this summer and remained standing each time a final whistle has sounded.
They will recognise the aggression of course as the flattery of imitation. As Kilkenny’s dominion has stretched so other teams have sought to match their frank physicality with a toned-up bulk of their own. A lot of terrible beauties have been born unto hurling.
Kilkenny seem willing to accept that as their lot, however. Nothing they say matches their own honesty with themselves on the training field in Nowlan Park and so far this year Tipperary (in the league final), Galway, Dublin and Waterford have all hit them with shock and awe type physicality and been rebuffed.
In such circumstances manager Brian Cody is a conservative. He falls back on the tried and the trusted, on the warriors whose form he knows. Yesterday Henry Shefflin delivered for him to the tune of 1-14 (1-6 of which came from play). Shefflin and Cody have soldiered together since 1999 in times of unprecedented success and drama. Yesterday Shefflin was regal, leading a forward line which was struggling to find space among the compact and crowded Waterford defence.
“Not for the first time,” said Cody. “He has been outstanding for us on a couple of occasions when he didn’t score at all from play. His workrate, everything about Henry Shefflin is top class. He brings everything to the game, everything to his training, everything to his life. Just an outstanding fella and an outstanding player. He was excellent.”
And so Cody and Shefflin march on. Since he came to the job as Kilkenny manager in 1999 they have won six All-Irelands together, missed out on All-Ireland final day just twice (2001 and ’05) and brought the game to new levels. Any defeat they suffer is a landmark event in the sporting year. Yesterday Davy Fitzgerald almost plotted their downfall.
“Yeah I thought we were going to win it,” the Waterford manager said ruefully when it was done and dusted. “That was what was in our heads coming up here. I feel absolutely gutted inside. All that has been in our heads since we started back was this. The stuff we went through you wouldn’t put a dog through since we started back on January 14th.”
And that is what every county throws at this Kilkenny side. Everything. A year’s work. A year’s hunger.
Cody spoke after the game yesterday of how we will come to Croke Park next Sunday and enjoy the other semi-final between Tipperary and Limerick before Kilkenny really get down to work for the final.
There was no hubris, no arrogance. Kilkenny know what is ahead of them regardless of who they face on the first Sunday of September. They know that victory will come from inside themselves and from nowhere else.
“Our hunger is a guarantee,” said Cody. That is what has to be matched. All they have given, all they have done. The result is just a greater, keener hunger.
