There are things in life which, even though you know they are coming, you are never quite ready for it. In Meath, that day arrived in September 2005 when Sean Boylan announced he wasn’t going forward for a 24th season as senior football manager.
Hindsight, of course, has proven that it should never have come to that at the time. How the Brains Trust of the day unfathomably and unforgivably failed to give the man who had won four All Irelands, eight Leinster Championships and three National League titles the two year term he requested is actually quite galling.
Though still not as debilitating as the dithering obfuscating infesting the process to appoint a successor to Andy McEntee. Meath football needs and deserves better. That is not to say one would like to see anything like the disgrace which unfolded in Tippeary, but why are we always last to get our house in order?
Anyway, down on the banks of the River Suir tonight, they will be experiencing similar empty, confused feelings. Just like us back in 2005, the day they will have dreaded for so long but knew would eventually come has finally dawned.
The most familiar baseball cap in Irish sport has been finally retired to the peg. Brian Cody has finally called time on his astounding stewardship of the Kilkenny senior hurling team.
From a neutral perspective, his decision to abdicate his throne came as quite a shock. Yes it had to happen sometime, but there was no way it could’ve been foreseen that now would be that time.
Simply because, having blooded the likes of Mikey Butler, Mikey Carey, Cian Kenny, Billy Ryan and Martin Keoghan, it appeared the James Stephens clubman was building yet another powerful team.
But then, when you’ve achieved what Brian has in the game, both as player and manager, you get to write and stick to your own script. Brian’s playing days were before I was properly attuned to the goings on of the world.
However, having seen tapes of matches he was involved in, suffice to say, he inculcated in the teams he managed the same qualities with which his own game was imbued.
Honesty of effort, hard work and unity of purpose. He was recently quoted as saying he was a much better player than manager. Without intending any disrespect to the former full back’s playing abilities, not if he were Christy Ring, Mick Mackey and Henry Shefflin rolled into one would the player be better than the manager.
Though it seems impossible to contemplate now, from the time Cody was part of the pack of Cats that lifted Liam Mac Carthy in 1983, nine years would pass before he would again spend Christmas in the Marble City.
Moreover, even after the late, great Ollie Walsh had engineered those couple of great days, seven seasons would again pass before what they would see as the natural order was restored. In the meantime, Offaly and Clare and Wexford and Cork would enjoy significant autumnal harvests.
It could very easily be forgotten now – given the tsunami of success which Cody-coached teams bestowed upon their people – that his first All Ireland Final as boss (1999) ended in defeat.
As would become his trademark, though, it was obvious that it was a setback which grinded the gears of the former school Principal. Thus he took steps to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.
Now, obviously there were defeats along the way but from 2000 on it became clear that Kilkenny’s Plan A was to blow teams out of the water with early blitzes of goals. Quite easy for them to do with the likes of DJ Carey, Henry Shefflin, Eddie Brennan, Richie Hogan, TJ Reid, Ger Aylward and Martin Keoghan.
Over the years, Clare, Cork, Dublin, Offaly, Wexford, Galway, Waterford, Tipperary and Limerick presented themselves as worthy adversaries to different incarnations of a Cody crew. On occasion, the may have sent the all conquering manager and his imperious players searching for a tenth life that wasn’t there, but invariably he had their numbers.
Limerick and Waterford in particular are recalled taking detrimental pastings at the hands of Shefflin et al. But here’s the thing – not only did the Cats boss revolutionise his own county, he forced those trying to usurp his charges to go deep into the bowels of themselves.
To somebody of my vintage, Kilkenny of 2006-2009 must rank as the greatest collective the old game has seen. Talk of teams being ‘unbeatable’ is usually just fanciful folly, if the concept ever did carry any credence, it had to be the black and amber in that era.
Looking through a different lens, Brian Cody effected the GAA on a much broader scale than just in Kilkenny. Indeed, though the following might appear a little odd, it is my belief that his methodology has even influenced Gaelic football.
Witness how players like Derek Lyng and John Hoyne and Martin Comerford would drop in behind their own midfield to augment the rearguard. Blanket defence in all but name? Make up your own mind.
Another phenom which I think can be labelled a Cody-ism is the ploy of both midfielders pulling right to the two sidelines and puck outs then landing down on gigantic half forwards. Depending on how far one wants to go back, from John Power to John Hoyne to Henry Shefflin and onto Martin Comerford, Richie Power and, latterly, Walter Walsh, air travel has always been the preferred route.
Stating that it generally worked too would be akin to pointing out that today is Sunday. Mind you, eventually, teams adopted a ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ approach. Witness how Gearoid Hegarty of Limerick has now become the most influential player in the game.
Both through his ability to be a playmaker from puck outs and hit scores from three parishes away himself. We’ve seen that before somewhere!
As with any sport, it wasn’t all sunshine and smiles during the great man’s long tenure. Either for him or the players under his direction. Any winter they didn’t take home the autumnal gold, you imagined him at home, brooding, plotting, planning, tweaking. All the while watching more hurling than anybody else on the planet.
For the players, regardless of what ability they or others might think they have, they have to submit to and abide by the Cody doctrine. Which in a lot of cases meant those who in the end attained stardom having to bide their time before their manager entrusted them to commence battle.
TJ Reid, Eoin Larkin, Eddie Brennan, Tommy Walsh, Walter Walsh and, more recently, Richie Reid, all had to serve their time on the fringes before being given the being given the bench warrant to go in and earn their stripes.
Comparisons between Sean Boylan and Brian Cody are numerous and understandable. Here’s a perhaps less heralded one though – if, for whatever reason, a player managed to fall out of favour with either commander-in-chief, their jettisoning tended to be final.
There are a few examples within the Royal realm which could be reeled off here, one of which was one of the best underage footballers the county ever produced, but some things are best left unsaid.
Looking at Kilkenny, though, you think of fine hurlers like Charlie Carter and ‘Cha’ Fitzpatrick and Brian McEvoy and Adrian Ronan (I think) who were all let go when the general opinion would have been that all concerned still had plenty more to offer.
Mind you, neither Boylan nor Cody got a whole lot wrong in their long and distinguished managerial careers. The other and perhaps most intriguing similarity between the two was the ability and astuteness to pull a rabbit from a hat when needed.
In Sean’s case, that meant spending two hours on a soccer pitch in Wales rehearsing the move which would morph into the greatest Gaelic football goal ever scored.
Cody’s version of same came in two forms. Either putting Henry Shefflin on the newest and/or weakest of the opposition defence or producing a player few if any outside of the confines of Nowlan Park will have heard of.
Only for the player in question to go on and be absolute star of the show. What other manager would give a player their Championship debut in an All Ireland Final? Yet that is exactly where Walter Walsh and, if memory serves me correctly, the first version of Tommy Walsh, began. Neither of those two gambles worked out too bad!
The other common thread linking the two managers who have been mentioned most in this offering is to hear former players speak of how both men cared for and nurtured those under their wing as people every bit as much as they developed them as players.
Numerous examples relating to my neighbour could be furnished here, but what has really stuck in my head in recent days was Eddie Brennan’s reflection that “The abiding and defining memory of Brian Cody will be him in the middle of those of us lucky enough to be on the Kilkenny panel, whistle tucked away in his pocket, preparing us to go to war”.
The former corner forward was of course referring to the in-house training matches in Nowlan which became the stuff of legend. Having covertly misappropriated a tape of same many moons ago, it can be confirmed all the stories were true!
Commenting on the storied shootouts, Brennan’s summation was “Brian’s mantra was you’ll get everything you need here to be ready for whatever’s thrown at you on the field”.
Unfortunately from a Meath perspective, where the comparison deviates is, whereas Cody has left a promising bunch of players for whomever takes over and more on the production line following their recent All Ireland U-20 success, when Sean retired, Meath were left with a manager the county board didn’t want. Even though he was far and away the best candidate and they didn’t have a Plan B.
Then again, when it comes to replacing people of the calibre of Sean Boylan or Brian Cody, whoever does step in will be taking on a poisoned chalice and on a hiding to nothing.
How do you follow greatness? Kilkenny and the rest of the hurling world are about to find out.
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