Joint Ireland managers Terence 'Sambo' McNaughton and Michael Kavanagh. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile
By Paul Keane
Terence 'Sambo' McNaughton took a look around the victorious Irish dressing-room in Ennis and two players in particular caught his eye.
Sitting close to eachother were Kilkenny's Eoin Cody, an All-Star nominee this year, and Fermanagh's Luca McCusker, a Lory Meagher Cup finalist.
Five tiers of hurling separate the players but here they were together wearing the same green jerseys, a couple of feet apart.
They both played their part in the three-point hurling/shinty international win too, Cody striking a whopping 3-2 throughout the epic extra-time win and McCusker coming on and getting so stuck in that he ended up with a heavy knock for his troubles.
"I think that was the best thing about it," said joint Ireland manager McNaughton, referencing the fact that players from the MacCarthy, McDonagh, Ring, Rackard and Meagher Cup competitions were all part of Ireland's 20-man team.
"You had a young lad in our dressing-room from Fermanagh, Luca McCusker, sitting beside Eoin Cody - fantastic! You have the Morrissey brothers from Limerick there with what, five All-Ireland medals each? They're household names. It probably means a bit more again to the players from the lower tiers, the Ring and so on.
"But I've always said it, and I know from coaching in my own county in Antrim, there are good hurlers in every county. And this gives them a chance to be seen. It's great for them to be in a dressing-room with all the household names. And there were players from the lower tiers that stood up and looked every bit part of it."
Cody provided a sprinkling of stardust across the afternoon, drilling a stunning hat-trick. Every score seemed to be better than the previous one. Down's Daithi Sands teed him up for the first goal, Cody flicked the ball over his man and dashed clear for the second and his third in extra-time came after a clever feint and blast from a tight angle on the left endline.
Right at the death, Cody even attempted to flick the ball over his own head for a point, whilst using his spare hand to hold off his marker, but he was narrowly off target.
"You have to adapt in this game and he was brilliant," said McNaughton, noting that players can't catch the ball in the hybrid game. "He was flicking balls over his man's head, he was moving the ball into space. He was doing things that are almost unnatural to do in the game of hurling. Because we take the ball in the hand and we try to go around the man in hurling - you obviously can't do that here.
"So the good players who have the best stick work really show up and that's where a genius like Eoin Cody comes into his own. I thought Dan Morrissey, Cianan Fahy, Gerard Walsh from Antrim, Cody, they were all outstanding."
It was Ireland's ninth series win overall and McNaughton is already looking forward to next year's encounter.
"Anybody who watched this game would have to agree that there's room for it in our schedule, it was a class game to watch," said Sambo. "It's different to hurling, let's be honest, but it was smashing.
"You have to commit in this game, if you don't you're in trouble because it's an aggressive game. They're hurling with a four-foot stick. Everybody I talked to afterwards in the crowd was raving about the game so hopefully we'll go to Scotland next year and then we'll get it back to Ireland again and we'll hopefully have an even bigger crowd for that."
