Aidan Fogarty talks about the Kilkenny manager's steady rise from being an underage player who couldn't make teams.
DURING HIS TIME with the Kilkenny hurlers, Aidan Fogarty would often find himself in conversations with others about the future, and what lay ahead for his teammates.
Today, Fogarty jokingly admits that many of the Cats players of his generation have joined the meeja in some capacity. They probably didn’t think they’d ever join the Death Star back when they were players. But whatever about the deviations, there was one prediction from those days that did come true.
“Brian Cody had great time for him and would have got Derek to talk in dressing rooms. He just had a great demeanor about him and manner about him. Even in his day job, he was an area sales rep for a pharmaceutical company and would have been dealing with a lot of people. He loves talking about the game and breaking down where you can improve.”
An eventual winner of two All-Stars in 2002 and 2003, his arc was built on graft rather than God-given flair. In a 2011 interview with the Irish Examiner, Lyng recalls how he rejected a dream job offer to pursue his Kilkenny dreams. In 2002, having just broken through to the Kilkenny seniors, Lyng had been offered a sales rep gig which included a juicy salary and a new Ford Mondeo. The trade-off however was that the work would be eating into his time with Kilkenny.
Fogarty isn’t familiar with the story but accepts that the way he handled it was in keeping with Lyng’s character. Sitting into a throne that was previously occupied by Cody always carried the possibility of struggle. Transition. Disappointment. Cody Hangover. Needs time. There were concerns that Kilkenny might regress in their first year without the 11-time All-Ireland winning manager.
“But even in that league final, he didn’t throw on the likes of TJ or bust themselves to win it. He threw on a few young lads to give them the taste of it because he knew the game was gone. That takes experience and takes a lot of guile for a manager to do that in their first year.
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