Noel Hickey Kilkenny

Sunday, 21st September 2003

© Copyright The Sunday Tribune.
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Hickey took the plaudits as
Kilkenny finally tough it out.

By Enda McEvoy
September 21st 2003

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No, says Noel Hickey, laughing, he definitely wasn't out spreading slurry at home in Dunnamaggin till 10.30 the night before the final, and where did the Tribune hear such a lurid tale anyway? And no, he hasn't been burning the candle too much this past week either, especially not after someone's studs landed on his ankle in the second half last Sunday. His shin was cut, dirt got in and infection ensued, necessitating a course of antibiotics and a few days' rest. The glamour of being the All Ireland man of the match.

It was this day four years ago that Hickey made himself known to the general public. The Sunday after Kilkenny had been overturned by Cork in the rain at Croke Park, the afternoon after PJ Delaney's life had been turned upside-down on the streets of Thurles. Still hungover from the debacle of the previous sabbath, Kilkenny supporters travelled to Tullamore for the All Ireland under-21 final more in hope than confidence to watch a team that contained Hickey, Michael Kavanagh, Sean Dowling, Richie Mullally, Jimmy Coogan, Henry Shefflin and Eddie Brennan. Among the subs were the injured John Hoyne and the little-known duo of Derek Lyng and Martin Comerford.

Nobody could have dreamed that so many of them might be giants. Nobody could have suspected that the outline of Brian Cody's Kilkenny - his team as opposed to the one he inherited - was to take shape that day.

Hickey was 18 at the time, straight out of minor, captaining the under-21s and marking Eugene Cloonan. He marked him well, even if Cloonan loyalists could point to an inhibiting hand injury their man picked up. Down the other end of the field, Shefflin knocked over point after point after point, and Kilkenny shaded it by 1-13 to 0-14. The same group of young men haven't stopped winning finals since.

The seniors called Hickey up for a South East League match a couple of months later. He replied sadly that he couldn't go, that he'd a hernia operation arranged. "Don't worry," Johnny Walsh told him. "Come in whenever you're ready." Hickey entered the fold the following January. That was three years and three All Ireland senior medals ago.

He's been one of the rocks on which Cody's church has been founded. Not a physical colossus, not flashy, always comfortable playing on the edge. When they try to think of his bad days, the one really poor performance in the jersey that's cited - hardly a damning record for a 22-year-old - is the National League match against Tipperary at Nowlan Park in April, when Redser O'Grady, assisted significantly by a tide of clean possession from out the field, took him for 1-6. Afterwards the Kilkenny selectors put it down to overwork on the farm. Hickey himself put it down to the law of averages. "Things just didn't go well for me on the day. You've days like that. I'd never met Redser before or heard much about him. He was unknown to me. He started very well and continued the same way."

Although Hickey was "fairly down" for the rest of the evening, once Monday dawned he opted for a course of selective amnesia. "I couldn't let it get to me much or I'd be finished for the year." The following Sunday, Kilkenny travelled to Pairc ui Chaoimh and Hickey, "more prepared" for Joe Deane than he had been for O'Grady, had the opportunity to flush the dirt out of his system. He grasped it joyfully, and a few weeks later the Nowlan Park reverse was put to rights when O'Grady was seen off in the league final. Hickey hasn't looked back since.

Hickey and Kavanagh have been hurling alongside one another for the county since 1997. Both they and Kilkenny are the better for it. Hickey can t remember seeing anyone getting the better of Kavanagh in that time, can scarcely remember Kavanagh even missing a ball. "You see him go out for the ball and very rarely it comes past him." For his part Kavanagh lauds Hickey ' s strength, his reading of the game, his big-day temperament. "I genuinely never worry about any ball going in there. At this stage we know each other ' s game so well. It is a help."

Another All Star apiece in a few months' time may underline the point.

***

For Cork, losing last Sunday was a disappointment. For Kilkenny, losing last Sunday would have been a disaster.

All the struts and screws were in place. Great manager, winning team containing two of arguably the county's three best forwards ever, momentum, confidence, incentive, prime conditioning on the training ground. Defeat was not an option, yet it was nearly the outcome.

Imagine the ensuing schadenfreude; overrated, overhyped, years of looking good beating dross in Leinster, unable to do it when the treadmill quickened, etc. How a defeated Kilkenny would have even begun to go about picking up the pieces next spring, presumably under new management, is unimaginable. Apocalyptic stuff.

Against Cork, the McCarthy Cup holders were required to tough it out for the first time in 13 months. They toughed it. In the words of one of their better-known supporters, the greyhound trainer Paul Hennessy, "it doesn't matter if you win a race in 30.50 as long as you cross the line first and get the money".

Unsurprisingly if disappointingly, the Radio Kilkenny airwaves did not reverberate last Monday to the echoes of listeners who'd vented their ire on Cody during the Charlie Carter episode ringing up to express their contrition. Managers, as Paddy Buggy declared at the time, must be allowed manage. Cody made his own bed, lay on it and slept the sleep of one at peace with himself. It is now a matter of (recent) history he made the right decisions and, even more importantly, made them for the right reasons.

For 15 minutes in the second half it was a close-run thing, mind. What looked to be a bout of temporary sideline paralysis was undone when Comerford was switched back in full-forward from the wing, the arrival of Andy Comerford and Richie Mullally offered a freshening wind, while Conor Phelan, introduced earlier for his physical forcefulness, had a hand in the goal and made Shefflin's insurance point. With his team running on empty, Cody's tour of the sideline to exhort the troops, as captured by the TV cameras ("Keep going!"), may have constituted his finest moment ever.

Some passing fancies. Deciding whether Diarmuid O'Sullivan is more of an asset than a liability may constitute a winter's reflection for Cork. If Setanta has a bit of growing up to do, we'd like to meet the reader who didn 't have at the same age. Some midfielder out there is going to get one of the handiest All Stars ever awarded. Had they served out for the championship in 1999, Kilkenny wouldn't have won three of the past four All Irelands. And for all the champions' infatuation with taking on the ball and the opposition, that Martin Comerford's goal followed on from John Hoyne opening up the Cork defence with a first-time pull was not a coincidence.

So a season in which the All Ireland senior, minor, colleges', Tony Forristal and Feile na nGael titles ended up on Noreside finishes today with the under-21 crown up for grabs and amid ample room for easy speculation that it will take a nation of millions to hold them back. Too easy.

One knows not the day nor the hour. Ten years ago, Kilkenny and Galway were busy contesting and carving up the All Ireland senior, minor and under-21 finals between them, the pair seemingly poised to dominate the remainder of the decade. It took Kilkenny till 2000 to win their next senior title; Galway are still trying. Clare proved that sometimes, even in hurling, one never knows - thankfully - what's around the corner. And, at the risk of attempting to create a new early for getting one's retaliation in first, chances are that the McCarthy Cup holders will prove to be only half the team whenever Cody departs.

Hickey took the plaudits as Kilkenny finally tough it out.

Hickey took the plaudits as
Kilkenny finally tough it out.