‘I still watch it … I don’t miss being involved – it’s just the way I am’ – Cats legend Brian Cody

He’s talking about the state of the game and his role with the Hurling Development Committee when you ask him if he’s ever reflected on his own, enormous legacy.

“Not even remotely,” he deadpans. “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.”

It’s a reply that fits with your impression of the man. His tolerance for whatever he sees as superfluous – including trips down memory lane – sits at precisely zero.

You’ve always suspected that for the longest time there were two types of people in Brian Cody’s world. There were those who were trying to help Kilkenny win the All-Ireland and everyone else.

Journalists were firmly in the latter category.

After one of his 11 All-Ireland SHC final wins as a manager, a member of a foreign TV crew in the Hogan Stand auditorium sheepishly asked a question and followed with an apology: “I’m sorry, I don’t know much about hurling.”

Cody’s reply was succinct: “That doesn’t make you any different from anyone in here.”

Still, his message was consistent. It was never about him or any of the many celebrated individuals who came and went from his dressing rooms, some of whom sit comfortably in the ‘greatest of all time’ conversations. They had their days in the sun, but everyone, including himself, were only passing through, custodians of the geansaí for the next generation.

It was always about hurling, Kilkenny and the next game. Now that he’s left the county game, he doesn’t miss it.

“I still watch it . . . I don’t miss being involved to be honest, no I don’t. 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 [at inter-county level] now. And I can’t say I miss it.”

It’s two years now since he ended his time with Kilkenny. Eleven All-Ireland titles and more than two decades distilled into three paragraphs on the county’s website. Three more paragraphs than he’d have liked, you’d guess.

What was it that made him call time after the 2022 final?

“Check my birth cert maybe! 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.”

As far as anyone can make out, he hasn’t been seen in many media settings since stepping away. Cody happily took his enormous legacy back into the relative shadows of the club game with James Stephens.

It’s not a leap to suggest that he’d be happy to never see a dictaphone again. And it took something of real significance to draw him out here. He’s in Croke Park to talk about his work with the Hurling Development Committee, Jarlath Burns’ high-powered and ambitious group that will kick-start a project that will be a decade and more in the making.

They have many goals but they can be distilled into the following: one is to have more teams able to compete at Liam MacCarthy level. The other is to bring the game to the vast swathes of the country where hurling doesn’t exist.

“It’s spreading the game of hurling, the love of hurling and giving the opportunity to all the people in the country, and particularly the young children in the country, the chance to play hurling.

“And that’s what Kilkenny has got and so many other counties as well obviously. And again you have people in all these counties where hurling is not prominent, there are people from strong hurling counties living there now and [it’s about] those people coming along and saying, ‘wouldn’t it be great if there was a bit of hurling here for the boys and the girls or whatever,” adds Cody.

“And that can be a starting kick for the whole thing and for more people to get involved and that is where the committee is very important, to give the support to them.”