Kilkenny's Eoin Cody has said that there is a huge desire in the Kilkenny camp to end their nine-year wait for an All-Ireland crown next year.
Kilkenny has not won the Liam McCarthy cup since 2015. They have been in four finals since, most notably in 2022 and 2023, but were beaten by the best team in the country, Limerick, on both occasions.
There was a time when Kilkenny was the de facto best hurling team in the country, but those days under former manager Brian Cody are gone. In 2009, Kilkenny became the first county since Cork in 1941–1944 to win the four in a row. Cody's 11 titles during his Kilkenny stint were the glory days.
His son Eoin, who is now a Kilkenny regular, believes that the hunger and desire to be the best once again drive the current Kilkenny team every year. This will be no different in 2024, confirms the 23-year-old.
"If there was only one player out on the pitch, the goal in Kilkenny will always be to win an All-Ireland," Cody told RTÉ Sport.
"If that’s not your goal as a Kilkenny man, there’s no point in going out playing. You hurl to win, and in Kilkenny, we hurl to win All-Irelands.
This was absolutely unbelievable by Eoin Cody 😱😱 pic.twitter.com/20LZEWsXCe
— Niall McIntyre (@NiallMcintyre) July 25, 2023
"It hasn’t happened since 2015, but the hunger and work ethic are as strong as ever. We fully believe in ourselves, and we fully know we’re capable of doing it. There are challenges along the way.
"In hurling, on any given day, there’s a winner and a loser, but we’ll do all we can to be on the winning side, and we’ll take it game by game again this year."
There is obviously huge pressure from fans and the media to try and topple Limerick. How can there not be when you have such a rich history in hurling? However, according to Cody, the pressure is only recognised within the Kilkenny camp and from outside sources. The desire to replicate former Kilkenny heroes, past and present, is the reason for any sort of pressure that may exist, added Cody.
"No one puts pressure on us, only ourselves," he added.
"You want to win, that pressure is in the camp… the team is mostly lads who haven’t won All-Irelands now. We want to have that feeling. The teams we all watched growing up, we want to replicate that. But there’s a lot of good teams around and one team in particular [Limerick] is going to be there or thereabouts this year, as they are every year."
