Brian Cody: ‘Of course I enjoyed being manager, but the game goes ahead and I can’t say I miss it’

Brian Cody doesn’t even pause to consider his answer. After 24 seasons as Kilkenny manager, in July 2022 Cody stepped down. Two years on, does he miss the intercounty game?
“I still watch it, I don’t miss being involved, to be honest, no I don’t,” he says.
“It’s just the way I am. Did I enjoy it? Of course I enjoyed it, but the game goes ahead and I am not involved in it now and I can’t say I miss it.
“If I was going to miss it I would have maybe tried to stay doing it, but I think you move on and that’s it really.”
Cody turned 70 this year and is currently managing his home club James Stephens. He also recently agreed to join the National Hurling Development Committee to help grow and develop the small-ball code. He’s still involved in the game. As it ever was, only different.
His last match at the helm for Kilkenny was the 2022 All-Ireland final defeat to Limerick. Privately, no matter how the fixture played out that afternoon, Cody had resolved that it would be his last time patrolling the sideline as manager of the Cats.
“I knew at the time, yeah. It wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction after a match. I was never going to announce it, but my mind was pretty much made up.”
Having guided to within 70 minutes of another Liam MacCarthy triumph, what made him decide then was the right time to go?
“Probably checked my birth cert, maybe, I don’t know,” he laughs.
“I was enjoying it, but I didn’t own the job. An opportunity was there for someone else to come in and take it on. So, it was just a natural evolution of what happens. I suppose I spent longer there than most people.”
His managerial record is unlikely to ever be equalled – he guided his native county to 11 senior All-Ireland titles, 18 Leinster championships, 10 League crowns and seven Walsh Cup triumphs.
But he hasn’t spent the last two years luxuriating in the memories of that glorious era.
“Not even remotely,” he says. “At the end of the day, I didn’t hit a ball in any of those matches. The players, that I was privileged to be involved with, won whatever they won.
“Obviously, you need a good set-up, the whole backroom, everything has to be good, but players go out and make those achievements for everybody.
“I never felt it a huge burden [to be manager] when I was doing it. Life just goes ahead really.”
Kilkenny will enter the 2025 season having not won Liam MacCarthy for a decade, but Cody doesn’t believe the success of the team should be measured merely in silverware.
“You look at, ‘Are you being competitive? How are you playing?’ You could go through the other strong hurling counties and start counting years as well. Kilkenny are not alone, it’s hard to win these things.
“Since Derek [Lyng] came in, we have been very competitive. They were barely beaten by Clare this year, who went on to win the All-Ireland final. Won a league and two Leinster finals as well.
“We are doing very well and that’s what we get on with. It’s easy to say you want to be successful, but to be successful you have to be competitive, and we are.”
As for his work with the Hurling Development Committee, Cody hopes the game can grow and be promoted in less traditional hurling strongholds.
But it’s evident he feels the split season has created an intercounty campaign that is too truncated.
“It is short, for sure. Short and snappy. A fella could get a fairly basic injury, roll an ankle or a hamstring, and miss three or four games,” says Cody.
“That could put an end to his championship for that year and that’s hugely disappointing obviously.
“It’s a big change for the people who were always so used to September. But the split season has panned out like that. Certainly people need to sit down and discuss it, look at potential tweaks that can be done to it. Not a wholesale change but it can be tweaked here and there.”
The focus on the handpass is something he has observed with interest too but more than anything his grá for the game remains.
“Hurling is an attraction and is attractive to people no matter where you are from and when people from whatever country, who have never seen the game before, see that game on TV they are awe struck by it because of the skill, the pace, the physicality, the whole excitement of the thing.”
Limerick this season came up short in their quest for an unprecedented fifth successive All-Ireland senior hurling title, just as Cody’s Kilkenny side had done in 2010.
But there was no sense of relief within Cody that the five-in-a-row had not been achieved by another county.
“Not in the slightest, I wouldn’t be thinking like that at all. They’re a super team. It’s obviously a very hard thing to do, and it should be a very hard thing to do.”
In two weeks, his challenge will be a more local one. Cody will be on the sideline managing the Village in a senior relegation play-off against Glenmore. It’s high stakes stuff.
“Every year that game happens for two clubs, in so many counties. Everybody knows the consequences of not winning. Our game is an absolutely massive game.”
Same as it ever was for Brian Cody, only different.