Top Cat Cody's Cold War with media types

EVER wonder how a manager who, in the preamble to a big Championship match swore blind that neither he nor his team "ever read the papers" but then in the immediate aftermath of a subsequent win asserted "ye' all wrote us off?"

Well, take the following back-and-forth from the recent Kilkenny press night by way of explanation.

Surrounded by the nation's gaelic games press, Brian Cody was considering the fall out from the Leinster final, an event as shocking to hurling's analysts as it was, no doubt, the Kilkenny manager himself.

Brian Cody: "People are beginning to wonder around the place, are they finished, is the team coming to an end," Cody mused.

"That's being speculated on in the press and whatever and that's fair enough. It hasn't occurred to me that that is the case though."

GAA Hack: "So you use that to motivate the players?"

BC: "Naw, naw, we don't talk too much about the press."

(At this point, it was recalled how Cody and a couple of the Kilkenny players after last year's All-Ireland final victory dug out a headline from a national newspaper which ran the day after their League final dismantling by Dublin and joshed playfully with its author.)

GAA Hack: "You used a headline from last year?"

BC: "What one was that?"

GAA Hack: "Croker Chokers".

BC: "Croker chokers? Who wrote that?," he laughed turning to the penner of said article although not, it must be pointed out, the headline.

BC: "I was wondering if you remembered who had written it?! No, we mentioned that only after the All-Ireland final. We hadn't read it, we save up the papers until after the game."