Top Cat TJ takes small steps

Perhaps the greatest team in hurling history, Kilkenny begin their quest for a fifth straight All-Ireland title this weekend. JOE caught up with Cats captain TJ Reid.

By Shane Breslin

Three weeks after the hurling championship roared into life with Cork lowering the colours of Tipperary in a not-so-phoney war in Munster, the king of the jungle will awake and arch its back at Croke Park this weekend.

While all the pretenders to the crown have already taken their first steps into the summer, Kilkenny have been waiting in the wings. Their entrance, for a game against Dublin at a sure to be half-full and soulless HQ on Sunday, will not be that of the gladiator entering the amphitheatre for a do-or-die battle. They’re unlikely to be complacent against an improving Dublin, but they know there will be bigger contests ahead.

This Kilkenny team is on the threshold of that rarest of titles: the greatest there has ever been. Few teams or athletes can lay claim to that status without some measure of debate. If Kilkenny manage to lift the Liam McCarthy Cup for the fifth successive time next September, there will be no argument. They will have become the first side to do so, at a time when the GAA is amateur in nothing but name: it will be an achievement to set them apart from anyone who has gone before.

We’re not short of leaders. I might be captain but I won’t be taking over the place at all

No pressure, then. Talking to TJ Reid, the young Ballyhale Shamrocks forward for whom the honour of walking up the steps to receive Liam McCarthy could fall in three months’ time, the effects of pressure is not something that is immediately apparent. This Kilkenny team believes so absolutely in itself that the only pressure is from within.

Given that they’ve won four All-Irelands on the trot, one would think that a potentially damaging superiority complex may have set in. If there was ever any danger of that – and it was never likely to happen in the sphere of influence of Brian Cody, one of the game’s greatest managers – it was blown out of the water by the National Hurling League in the spring, when the Cats were uncharacteristically never in the running for honours and lost to possibly the three nearest pretenders to their crown, Cork, Tipperary and Galway.

Reid admits that while there were extenuating circumstances, their struggles in the spring have invested a real sense of purpose in the panel.

“At the start of the League myself and the rest of the Ballyhale boys weren’t there so I can’t really say why things went the way they did,” he says. “But Brian and the boys certainly weren’t going out there taking it handy in the League.

“We had a few injuries as well – about ten lads were out at various times – so we didn’t really have a full line-up out for any game. But we realise that every team out there is upping their game at least another 30, 40 per cent to try to beat us. That’s just the way it is now so we have to be ready for every game.”

Cody makes a habit of unearthing at least one or two new faces each year and that looks to be the case once more for 2010.

“The good thing about the League,” says Reid, “is that you can experiment a bit so Brian gave a few young lads a chance – lads like John Mulhall, who’s flying it, Mick Grace, Canice Hickey. They took their chances so they’ll be hoping to play a big part this year.”

John Mulhall has grasped his chance in the Kilkenny side in recent months

Reid might be a few years more experienced than the newer faces and remains a prodigiously promising forward, but his situation is complicated by the fact that he has been handed the captaincy this year. So is he feeling any extra pressure as a result?

“To be honest I told the committee in Ballyhale that I really had to think about it,” he admits, “because I’m still really only trying to get my place on the Kilkenny team. I don’t want any extra pressure on me – there’s enough of that on the field.

“I won’t be a big talker. I kind of sit in the corner and listen to everyone else talk. Mick Fennelly was captain last year and he didn’t do a huge amount of talking, neither did Cha [Fitzpatrick] before him. If you want to say a few words, you can say a few words, but there’s no extra pressure on you in the dressing room to do that. I suppose it’s more about what goes on the field – you do your talking out there.

“There’s leaders all over the field on his Kilkenny team anyway. You walk into the dressing-room and look around you – Henry Shefflin, Tommy Walsh, JJ Delaney, their presence itself is unbelievable. There’s nothing better than having Tommy or JJ or John Dalton stand up there and give an inspirational speech. We’re not short of leaders. I might be captain but I won’t be taking over the place at all.”

Leadership in the Kilkenny team is prevalent throughout the field on the biggest of days: whether it’s Eddie Brennan having the courage to get on the ball and burrow through for a goal at a vital stage, Shefflin dropping deep to exert his influence or JJ plucking a ball out of the skies, there are leaders everywhere. And not just on the starting fifteen, either. It’s a trait evident in almost every player who pulls off the tracksuit top to reveal those black and amber stripes and takes to the field in a championship contest. It is that – the leadership, the togetherness, the unrivalled quality, the battle for places in Cody’s team – which has seen the legend of Kilkenny’s 15-against-15 training games grow and grow.

Henry is 31 now and he’s still improving as a player. His work-rate, his presence, everything about him – it’s unbelievable

“Every training session in Kilkenny is like an All-Ireland final,” TJ admits. “There are lads hopping off each other, breaking hurls off each other. It’s one of the reasons why we are where we are. Training is so intense, everyone puts 110 per cent every day. The way the League went, we know we have to up the tempo of our performances by 50 per cent or so, because we know everyone we play will be raising their game to try to knock us down. So we have to have that intensity in every training session and every game.”

If Reid is to take his place in the Kilkenny team against Dublin this weekend and for the rest of the year, he will be playing alongside a boyhood hero. TJ remembers being the ball-boy for Henry Shefflin when the great man was honing his talent in long hours on the field in Ballyhale years ago.

“Every time Ballyhale were training I used to be down there just looking at what Henry was doing,” he admits. “I remember coming home from St Kieran’s College and getting off the bus in Ballyhale and I’d meet Henry down the field probably three days of the week.

“He was out pucking the ball, taking frees and I’d be fetching the ball for him. I used to walk home from school some days and he used to be in there and I’d love pucking the ball back to him. Now I’m playing beside him, I suppose that’s just the way things go.

“I’d always look up to him. He’s 31 now and he’s still improving as a player. His work-rate, his presence, everything about him – it’s unbelievable, and even now I’m still looking up to him. He trains every day, he looks after himself top-notch and that’s why he’s up there as one of the greatest of all time. Hopefully some day I’ll be something like him but I know that’ll take a lot of hard work.”

As this year progresses, and Kilkenny – inevitably, assuredly – draw closer to another date in Croke Park in September, all the talk will centre on the five-in-a-row. Has he thought about being the man to lift the Cup at Croker later this year?

“Not really. It would be fantastic if we do go ahead and do it, but if it does happen then everyone will be talking about six.”

That’s for another year. For now, it’s just about being the greatest.

Kilkenny are 11/10 to make it five All-Ireland hurling titles in a row