There was no cockiness in
Flanagan’s remarks, more a
statement of what he hoped
would follow as they set out
to defend Liam MacCarthy
and they have made good on
his promise thus far as they
coasted to league success
before securing provincial
honours last month.
There were blips along the
way with defeats to Cork and
Tipperary but lessons were
learned – how often have
Cody’s men bounced back
better than ever from defeat?
- and all evidence suggests
that this Treaty group has the
x-factor of champions.
A scintillating Munster final
display brushed a formidable
Tipp challenge aside and left
hurling purists gushing but
Kiely had no interest in making
comparisons to Kilkenny in the
aftermath as they continue to
write their own history.
“That is nonsense. That is
nonsense stuff. That is total
and utter nonsense. I don’t
want to be compared to anyone
else. We are who we are. We
are ourselves. We are Limerick.
We are ourselves,” Kiely said
of his side being likened to the
ruthless Cats in their pomp.
“We are honest in our
endeavour. We are honest with
each other in our appraisal of
our performances and we only
look to the next day in any
one sense. That is the bottom
line. And the rest is absolute
nonsense. And I feel very strong
on that. End of story.”As with most things said and
done by Kiely, it was smart as
trying to measure oneself against
the greatest hurling team of all
time is a pointless exercise and
only leaves the door open for
complacency to slip through.The Galbally clubman has no
problem letting the guard down
in the off-season and going into
detail about what it takes to
succeed at inter-county level, but
until another MacCarthy Cup is
in their grasp, he won’t be giving
anyone a stick to beat them with.Similarly, Cody has never been
one to heap praise on himself
and always displays humility
in victory and defeat with his
response to a question about hisrivalry with Wexford boss Davy
Fitzgerald after their Leinster
final defeat a perfect example
of doing your talking between
the white lines.“It’s never a question of me
against someone else. I would
never have had any focus of me
against any particular manager
or any particular manager
against me. I don’t ever think
about individualising those
type of things at all,” Cody said.Much has changed since
Kilkenny negotiated a lack-
lustre Limerick display in
Round 1 of the All-Ireland
Qualifiers two years ago but
the personnel on the sideline
remains the same and today’s
battle between the master
and apprentice looks set to be
another humdinger.