Eoin Cody: Teams in league final will be under pressure to get ready for championship

Source: Irish Examiner
Author: Eoghan Cormican

Limerick are hurling's barometer. Kilkenny are about to have their temperature taken.

Regarding Saturday evening down by the Lee, Eoin Cody wants to make one point above all else clear: however Kilkenny fare against John Kiely's men, be that a fourth consecutive defeat or a first league win over the Treaty since 2010, it won't mean anything come championship.

This is only the league, after all. And the League quickly fades into irrelevance once the provincial round-robins get up and roaring.

But should Kilkenny succeed in reversing the 2023 All-Ireland final defeat, the 2023 League final defeat, and the 2022 All-Ireland final defeat, we reckon Cody might have a different take on his Saturday "doesn't mean anything for championship" statement.

Towards the end of yesterday's conversation with the Kilkenny and All-Star forward, the 23-year-old gave his tuppence worth on why the four-in-a-row champions are so difficult to overcome.

He spoke of Limerick's know-how and the winning mindset forged over several seasons.

"Regardless of how well they play, they still manage to get over the line in the end," was his pretty spot-on summation.

And so while Saturday might only be the League and Cody might claim the result won't reverberate into summer, the one sure way of cultivating the mentality that has seen Limerick through a whole host of sticky in-game situations is to go and beat hurling's "benchmark", irrespective of the date on the calendar.

"Obviously it is tough playing the champions because you know how good they are. It probably comes down to mentality, and when you are winning you have that winning mentality.

"And no matter what, even if you are going out playing with two players, you still believe you can win. That is what winning does for you," Cody remarked.

"Obviously they are in a winning camp for the last four years, they know how to win, and that spirit spreads throughout the dressing room. If you are only a new player coming in or you are there 10 years, they all have that same mentality, that same belief, and that comes from winning.

"In order to get to that mentality, you have to win, and we want to do that. Limerick have beaten us in the last couple of years, but that probably gives us a bit of an extra edge to go and beat them maybe this time.

"Limerick are the best team in the country and if you are beating them you are obviously doing something right. So if we could win, it would be great."

For the winners of Saturday's penultimate round clash, there's a League final date on April 6/7. But given its proximity to the start of championship two weeks later, is there a real tangible value to being part of the League's concluding afternoon?

"It's a national title, I haven't won one yet," Cody replied. "I think we won one in 2018, we haven't won too many. Obviously when there is silverware on the line you want to win it, and to win a National League would be great, we'd all love to win one.

"That League final performance against Limerick last year probably drove us on for the championship. We probably didn't let the performance from that day happen again for the rest of the championship. We probably let our standards down a bit that day and really upped them after that. It was really a wake up call."

But to make those League finals better spectacles, to ensure total buy-in from the competing counties, and to return them to the heights of the Tipp-Kilkenny deciders of 2009, '13, and '14, Cody argued for greater distance between it and the lowering of championship's flag.

"The old league finals Kilkenny and Tipperary played around 2010-14 used to be so good because there wasn't a game for another couple of weeks, so you gave it your all and it wasn't going to have an impact on any championship game.

"Now, if you go out with all guns blazing, you can pick up injuries and lads could be sore come the championship which is a week or two down the line. It is so competitive now, you just can't afford it really.

"Maybe the fact that it is going to two different divisions next year, maybe if you top the group you deserve to win the league. Maybe this year, if there was just a league final and it was for the teams who topped the two groups it would give everyone that break.

"These few weeks are huge in terms of getting ready for the championship. It probably drags on for the teams and if you had the league final this weekend, you would have three or four weeks to build up to the championship.

"Teams who are in the league final are really going to be under pressure to get themselves ready for championship."