It's all about getting the players to perform - Fogarty
September 03, 2010
Kilkenny selector Martin Fogarty celebrates with James "Cha" Fitzpatrick.
One of the strengths of the Kilkenny senior hurling management team is that they refuse to take anything for granted.
Their blueblood tradition has been upholstered with steel rods over the past four years, making for coalmine black thoughts in opposition camps.
And for all that, peacock-vain Cats they are not. No team prepares for the heat of battle quite like Kilkenny.
Indeed, most observers are at one in agreeing that one of the bulwarks of the black and ambers' unremitting success has been their preparatory work.
Selector Martin Fogarty is part of the furniture in the defending champions' camp and his lexicon is a cold place for the word complacency.
Judged purely on pedigree and ability, predicting the destination of the Liam McCarthy Cup in the coming week is a no-brainer.
But Fogarty scoffs at the notion that the Cats are about to sashay their way to yet another Liam McCarthy Cup success with consummate ease.
According to the Castlecomer native, there's little chance of the air around Drumcondra being clogged soon after the final whistle with the dust spawned by the mother and father of all beatings for Tipperary.
"There's no way this year's final will be a lop-sided affair, no matter who wins the game," Fogarty says matter-of-factly.
"It will be a huge battle of hearts and minds and I'd be very surprised if it didn't go right down to the wire."
Fogarty is determined that the first week in September won't see Croke Park being transformed into a killing field for Kilkenny's hopes of a historic five-in-a-row of Liam McCarthy Cup triumphs.
The upcoming championship final must be a building block for the Cats, not a tombstone, he insists.
Fogarty was on board the Good Ship Kilkenny in 2006 when it blasted the Titanic that was Cork out of the water; a Cork team that were odds-on favourites to take the title that year.
Back then, Fogarty - as is his wont - pulled no punches in taking a swing at pundits countrywide who wrote off the would-be record-chasing Cats: "It's a two horse race and there's no such thing as an outright favourite in this final," he countered prior to the '06 decider.
"And who makes anyone favourite in a game of hurling?
"There are a lot of people, bookies included, who aren't involved in hurling and they've made Cork favourites. But what do they know? They haven't a clue!"
This time around, Kilkenny are the unbackables. Fogarty is consistent in his view that anything can happen in a final.
He rubbishes the idea that Tipp can't surprise the black and ambers in the same way that Cork were sunk by his own charges four years ago.
"To get fifteen of your players to play to the maximum of their ability is next to impossible but you can hope to have 12 of them playing very close to their maximum ability with the other three holding their own.
"So it all depends on the numbers game and how many fellas hit the high notes on the same day.
"We didn't perform to our best last year but Tipp hadn't enough players playing to their maximum ability to knock us off our perch.
"Getting the breaks is a big thing in hurling; more so than in any other sport I know.
"There have been several matches over the past four years when we could have been beaten if things had gone right for the opposition.
"Eoin Kelly slipped at an inopportune time in last year's final and if a score had come about then, things could have worked out a lot differently."
So far this year, nothing different has happened upon Kilkenny. They haven't been tested yet in 2010.
The Firoda-based primary school teacher fingers the duel last time out against Cork as the strongest challenge posed to Kilkenny to date.
"We played well in the first half against them but we were nowhere nearly good enough in the second half which has given us a lot of food for thought.
"We were fortunate that we had built up a good cushion before they came back at us. There were pluses and minuses to be taken from that game."
Reflecting on the other championship games this year, Fogarty says it's been a mixed bag in terms of form for the nation's top team.
He says the Cats were "lucky that Galway didn't play to their full potential in the (Leinster) final 'cause we weren't outstanding by any stretch of the imagination."
Against the Dubs in the provincial semi-final, he believes the champions put in a workmanlike performance "and I suppose the best thing was we didn't take our feet off the pedals."
Kilkenny go into this year's final the hottest of favourites even without approaching their form of 2008 or 2009.
The team's display against Dublin was untypically ragged in patches and lethargic to a degree but clinical in its execution nonetheless. Seventeen wides against Galway is a statistic that will offer Tipp hope.
But as Fogarty points out, a team is only as good as the sum of its parts and with a solid defence and a dervish-like midfield, Kilkenny can afford some misfiring up front even, one suspects, against Tipp in an All-Ireland final.
The Erins Own clubman professes the height of respect for Premier County hurling. Tipp gave him some of his best nightmares.
"I remember when I was a youngster growing up and seeing Kilkenny getting hammerings from them.
"For years, Tipp were the b-all and end-all of hurling; they were our arch rivals and then they went off the radar between '71 when they beat us in the final 'till they won it again in '89.
"I can recall crouching under the seats in Croke Park and afraid to look out onto the pitch 'cause of the scores that Tipp were piling up on us.
"It hurt a lot when you were constantly getting beaten by Tipp so it's not hard to see why, from the perspective of most Kilkenny people, Tipp are the team that you'd want to beat in an All-Ireland final."
Fogarty says the black and ambers have their fate in their own hands as they did when going for a three-in-a-row in 2004 only to lose out to Cork.
From his days as an honest club player to the heights of achieving back to back All-Ireland Under 21 HC titles as manager of Kilkenny - against Galway in 2003 and Tipperary in '04 - and serving alongside Brian Cody since 2005, Martin has amassed a huge amount of experience.
A lot of his experience has taught him the worthwhileness of getting your own house in order ahead of some stocktaking of the opposition's assets.
"We'd tend to be more inward looking than outward looking when it comes to county hurling," the 50 year old explains.
"The focus a lot for us along the sideline is to try and keep the lads focussed on their fitness and the jobs they have to do rather than on what the opposition might be inclined to bring to the table."
Fogarty is imbued with a tremendous belief in Kilkenny's finest to do themselves and their county proud.
He talks up the core of key players that have served the Cats so well over the past four years and more but it's the quality of the support cast which has put them head and shoulders above the rest in recent times.
Kilkenny have consistently produced not only the best hurling team in modern years but also the best squad, year-on-year.
Fogarty's concern over the walking wounded in the camp just days ahead of the biggest hurling game of the year has definition and depth though.
"At this minute, you could safely say we're decimated with injuries and it's not looking good for a number of lads.
So the pressure is on?
"I don't see it as pressure and neither do the players.
"We know we have the players; we have a tremendous spirit in the squad and they are prepared to work very hard.
"A few young fellas have come to the fore and if they have added more energy and enthusiasm to the panel as a whole.
"We're not paying any heed to the hype about a five-in-a-row. All we're concentrating on is getting ready for one almighty battle with Tipp."
The country is convinced that the Cats will win most of the battles in the final and the war itself.
Fogarty's final say on the matter douses the flames of a young hack's immature expectations.
Instead of forecasting a definitive four-point like winning margin for the Cats, he bookends the interview like a sage and, in the process, demonstrates just how much of a stickler he is for sticking to the Kilkenny script.
"We're taking nothing for granted." Tweet
