GAELIC GAMES:FIRST NIGHT back at training, late 2001, Kilkenny begin the process of peeling themselves off the canvas where Galway had planted them in the All-Ireland semi-final a few months earlier. The usual scene – players limbering up, checking back in, gauging the mood. Charlie Carter cracks a joke but there's a distinct lack of rolling in the aisles. Brian Cody glowers at him. "It was very clear from that first night," Carter wrote in his autobiography, "that Kilkenny had a different manager now. A different Brian Cody."

Difference number one – the league was going to be treated with due diligence. Up until then, Cody and Kilkenny could take or leave the league. Heading into 2002, Kilkenny hadn’t reached a league final in seven years – their longest period out of the business end of the spring competition since the early 1970s. It wasn’t a statistic that annoyed anyone but all the same it was a wrong that would be worth righting.

If the defeat to Galway was the open wound as they set about that league, Tipperary was where Cody sourced the balm. In 2001, Nicky English’s team won the league and then gone on to take the All-Ireland, something no county had done since Galway in 1987. A taboo had been broken along the way and Cody put his mind and those of his players to smashing it to pieces. Mick Flynn, who was Kilkenny’s fitness trainer at the time, was delighted to see it.

“The common belief at the time was that you harmed your chances in the championship by going all-out to win the league. When Tipp did the double in 2001, that changed things in the sense that this notion of peaking too early in the year was gone now. I was pleased to see them do it in a way because at least this myth was shattered.

“Brian’s philosophy is that every game is important and every win is important, psychologically more than anything else. This was an achievable aim. If it didn’t happen, it wasn’t going to change the world because the championship was still the big thing. Your eye was always on September. But this notion of it being an obstacle was gone. There was a straightforward, honest endeavour to go for the league each year from then on.”

And go for it they did. They won five out of the next nine league titles. In four of those years, they followed up to complete the league-All-Ireland double in the same year.

There was a complete sea-change in the way Kilkenny approached the year. That spring, Peter Barry moved to centre back, JJ Delaney to wing back and Henry Shefflin to centre forward.

“Positions were tried out with intensity,” says Flynn. “It was, ‘Listen, we’re going to have a go at this on the basis that we want to win.’ There was no, ‘Ah, we’ll give it a go and if it doesn’t work out, it’s no big deal.’ There was a seriousness about it.”

New players came in too. Martin Comerford at full forward, Derek Lyng in midfield. “The one thing above all with the league around then is that was your chance to break on to the team,” says Lyng. “There was a load of us coming through at the time who were young and keen and Brian was very clear with us that if you got in and played well, you’d stay in for the championship. So we took it very seriously.

“As the years went by, if you were established in the team you still never lost the memory of how you got in in the first place. If I was able to break into the team during the league, then there was surely no reason that somebody coming up behind me couldn’t do the same. So that drove us on. That’s how it worked.”

Leagues were stockpiled and everyone else took notice. If Kilkenny were going eyeballs-out to win the league, then nobody else could say they were too good for it. It was no accident that Tipp won it in Liam Sheedy’s first year, none either that Kilkenny made sure to snuff them out in epic final the following year.

Cody knew all too well the worth of league momentum and the danger of letting a rival build up a head of steam. The greatest compliment he will pay Dublin tomorrow will be to try to quell their rising before it begins.

Leagues apart

Kilkenny's league final record under Cody

2002 beat Cork 2-15 to 2-14

2003 beat Tipperary 5-14 to 5-13

*2005 beat Clare 3-20 to 0-15

2006 beat Limerick 3-11 to 0-14

2007 lost to Waterford 0-20 to 0-18

2009 beat Tipperary 2-26 to 4-17 (after extra-time)

* 2005 is the only year they have reached the league final and not gone on to win the All-Ireland under Cody.