GER LOUGHNANE DESCRIBED the current Kilkenny team as ‘functional’ and felt that there was no way that the Cats should be bidding for a Liam MacCarthy Cup three-in-a-row in 2016.
Kilkenny forward Colin Fennelly questioned those comments and felt they were ‘weird’.
But what did Brian Cody, who has guided Kilkenny to 11 All-Ireland senior titles and was the subject of huge praise from Loughnane, think of the whole episode?
The pair hurled together on Fitzgibbon Cup teams at St Patrick’s College in Drumcondra in the 1970s, and faced off on the sideline as inter-county managers as well.
Cody seems somewhat bemused by Loughnane’s latest Kilkenny comments and there’s a strong sense that he is not perturbed by the views of a man he knows well.
“Well I just know how I take Ger – he’s a gas man! And I enjoy Ger, and I know Ger a long time. And he’ll say whatever … he might just throw anything out there just for the sake of throwing it out.
“Also, he maybe believes what he says as well, and that’s his opinion.
“It’s a good starting point for any team to be functional, I’d say. And if you ever lose that attribute, you’ll become dysfunctional very, very quickly.
Look, I’d have not the slightest concern about what Ger said – at all.”
Cody is not concerned with trying to decipher whether Loughnane’s comments were actually complimentary, and were focused on the Kilkenny manager’s achievement in attaining such success with the current group.
“Well, you see, I don’t know what he means by it. And again, if we were to concern ourselves with what all the various people say about us, you’d be working overtime trying to figure out why did he say this or who does he think he is?
We just concentrate on what we’re doing, and that’s it. I’ve never heard (it) mentioned by any of our players, or by anybody in Kilkenny at all, around our dressing-room.
“Look, Ger is a very enjoyable fella and he’s a gas man really … we’ll have a chat about it sometime, maybe; he’ll tell me exactly how he thinks.
“But I wouldn’t think he ever tells anyone what he really thinks, anyway.”
The42 is on Snapchat! Tap the button below on your phone to add!
Why can’t we comment on the Vera Pauw article down below? Afraid we might all tell a few home truth about some of the snakes in the squad?
@Dave Murray: The snakes in the squad including the manager have all got one thing in common, they all hail from Dublin.