Brian Cody reminded us of why he's the king of understatement with his assessment of Ger Aylward's performance against Wexford.
Aylward made one of the most eye-catching championship debuts of all time when scoring 3-5 from play in the Cats' Leinster SHC semi-final rout of Wexford yesterday, but Cody wasn't in the mood for showering anyone with praise.
"Ger had a decent game," the 10-time All-Ireland winning manager said.
"Ger would have been on the panel for a few years now and he was a very good underage player as well - he has worked hard to put himself in contention and he is now in contention. It is up to himself now to drive things forward again."
The player himself was delighted to make the most of his big opportunity.
"It's hard to get in there to the team, but thank God I got the chance and hopefully I can kick on from here," the Glenmore forward said.
"We've lost a few guys so it's up to us as players ourselves to step up to it. That's all we can do now, push on again from last year."
Cody said he wasn't worried about his players being in any way rusty after the 12-week gap since the Allianz League relegation playoff victory over Clare.
"We just prepare as normal, whether it is 12 weeks or two weeks - just prepare properly, in training," he added.
" It wasn't a question of just waiting for 12 weeks, the lads had club matches and went back to the clubs, so they didn't stay with us for 12 weeks.
"The lads know how to prepare for these things and we just worked away. Match practice does matter in championship and Wexford had a game against Westmeath, we were conscious of that, even though it was a game they won easy enough."
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