NHL DIVISION ONE:TIMES CHANGE. A year is a long time etc, etc. Kilkenny, for so long the poster boys of good attitude when it comes to the National Hurling League, may be about to enjoy a spring break.
Take tomorrow. It should be the sort of grudge match which would send the ratings through the roof were it professional wrestling.
It’s not though.
A year on from that infamous 27-point slapping in Nowlan Park nobody has forgotten. Whatever is being plotted in Cork or in Kilkenny this week, it looks as if the powder will be kept dry for now.
Denis Walsh has wisely kept things low key with no careless talk of revenge for the laceration Cork suffered in his first official match in charge. He has picked a conservative team just as he has moved with inscrutable caution on most matters. Cork will aim to get themselves considerably closer to their old rivals and to keep working and improving during the summer waiting for the main chance. For now, they are measuring themselves against their own template.
And Kilkenny? Last year with the exception of Waterford who viewed last year’s league fixture the way that many had hoped Cork would view tomorrow’s – as part of an unfinished blood feud – Kilkenny went through the Walsh Cups and early national league bounding like giants.
They are just as glad, one suspects, that those days are over and that for the time being they are in the pack. By the time they lifted their fourth All-Ireland in succession last September the days of the springtime waltzes through league fixtures were long behind.
This spring, with loses in the Walsh Cup, Walsh Shield and league already racked up, summer will be time enough.
Last year, with the four in a row beckoning, Kilkenny came out of the traps in full speed and scarcely stopped till they were at Newlands Cross in September with the Liam MacCarthy Cup at the front of the bus. The gradient changed quickly and steeply, however.
From the league semi-final onwards their days out seemed to get more bruising and attritional as the year went on.
When they got over the line in a final which confirmed that the pack are closing, they conceded that the notion of four in a row had weighed heavily on their shoulders. This year the party line will be that five is a just a number.
It is, but Kilkenny aren’t Kilkenny if the historic implications of a five in a row aren’t occupying their thoughts.
And so to Cork tomorrow where, despite the bloodlust which must exist on both sides of a rivalry that will never be quite extinguished, the likelihood is that Kilkenny will be as conservative as Cork and the 70 minutes will pass in gentlemanly fashion.
Kilkenny have been exemplary in their approach to the league under Brian Cody, turning in six appearances in finals and winning the double four times.
Last year the Cats exploded into the season in a manner designed to wrap themselves in an aura. They could afford to do so. Kilkenny finished 2008 with All-Ireland wins in all grades. Ballyhale’s business wasn’t finished until St Patrick’s Day. Kilkenny could lay down markers everywhere.
This year the reality is a little different. There is no suggestion that Kilkenny are gone.
Far from it. But the incline until September has changed. People are pushing back. It seems to be widespread policy in hurling that the way to beat Kilkenny is to beat them physically first.
Every serious game which Kilkenny play this year will see teams throwing themselves at them in the manner of Tipperary. The wear and tear after four years at the top already will be considerable. And the Ballyhale boys haven’t had rest in some time.
Leinster has changed. Dublin are capable of giving Kilkenny a hard afternoon and Galway have it in them to go further. Offaly are escaping from a time when they were the province’s soft touches.
Summer offers a series of bruising big-time encounters none of which will intimidate a side of Kilkenny’s appetite or attitude, but several of which carry dangers with them. Live on the edge and some day you get caught.
And, finally, the waiting-room isn’t as crowded as usual.
Last year threw up what for Kilkenny was a quite ordinary crop of underage talents. Richie Hogan appears to have graduated. Kilkenny still have more players than anybody else, but all talent has an expiry date on it.
Kilkenny will talk everybody up this spring in the usual mannerly way, but it would be no surprise to find the horses being hobbled by heavy training on a couple of big days. Last year’s best weapon was the suggestion of invincibility. This year’s might be the notion that that are old and vulnerable.
Tomorrow in Cork will tell a lot.
Fireworks would be welcome, but you have that feeling.
Seldom has a match promised to tell so much by virtue of how uninteresting it is. Only the league, as they say everywhere outside Kilkenny. Only the league.
