“A legend in his own time” is how former Galway hurling manager turned pundit Cyril Farrell described Brian Cody on Monday night’s Full Time.
Farrell shared his admiration for Cody’s tenure in Kilkenny on Monday’s show, a face and voice familiar to many in recent years for his work on The Sunday Game.
“The honesty of effort that he put into each team showed in each team. They all fought off their backs for him. He had retire at some stage, yet when it came it was a shock. Everyone else is going to be in his shadow”, Farrell told presenter Sinéad Kehoe.
“They (Kilkenny) were the benchmark. Even now with this good Limerick team, Kilkenny are still the benchmark. They’ve been the benchmark for so many years, especially under Brian. You know what you’re going to get. You got the same thing every day, they never failed to turn up and that was the big thing. Especially on the big days they’re very hard to beat.”
“It’s not just Kilkenny, it’s hurling and sport in general. He leaves a fantastic legacy. He’d never be complaining about a referee, he’d never be complaining about missing players. This honest, complete dedication – what he gave the team, the team gave him back in spades.”
“It wasn’t alone that he made the boys better hurlers, he made them better people in their own walk of life. That’s what you want to do as a coach. Ok, they’re hurling, but you want to make them better people as well and to fulfil their ambitions in life.”
The feeling in Galway
The conversation turned to potential successors for Brian Cody as Kilkenny GAA begin their search for a new senior hurling manager, the first appointment to the role since 1998.
There are plenty of names doing the rounds at the early stages including, Derek Lyng, Eddie Brennan and Michael Fennelly. Also in the mix, at least from the public’s point of view, is now current Galway senior hurling manager, Henry Shefflin.
Having only taken up the post last October, Farrell was asked what the feeling is like in Galway on hearing Shefflin’s name in contention for the Kilkenny post.
“For all public here, they’d love to hold on to Henry for at least another year anyway. He’s doing a fantastic job. They’re all very happy.”
“You would have to say he got a great twist out of the team this year and that they’re going places. They would be hoping that he doesn’t go. He’s eventually going to wind back up in Kilkenny but they’ll be hoping here in Galway it won’t be for this year coming anyway.”
“Kilkenny will have their own way of promoting those within the game. You’ll have a lot of lads down there that’s done a lot of work with development squads, underage teams and have been successful. It will be interesting, but whoever gets it will have big boots to fill.”
