Liam Cahill has looked up to Brian Cody over the years but he won't be in awe of the Kilkenny boss at Croke Park on Saturday.
"I've always been an admirer of Brian Cody, who hasn't? Where I'm living, on the Tipperary-Kilkenny border, I'm an avid follower of Kilkenny club hurling and I go to a lot of Kilkenny club matches. From my early days, I always have a memory of Brian Cody being on the bank at nearly every club game in the county. It got to a stage where the county board would arrange matches so he could get from one venue to the next! That left a print on my mind especially when I finished my playing days and got into management. That was his style of getting to see his players in the flesh, playing for their clubs and once they were performing for their clubs, they came into his thoughts. It's very humbling and it's a brilliant opportunity to man the line against him. I never thought it would happen to me in my early career as a manager. It's not one that I'm going to take a step back from or anything like that. I believe that we have the players on Saturday to perform and I'll be just concentrating on my players on the field and making sure that they're up to the level required to get the win for Waterford."
Waterford and Kilkenny played each other in a challenge match at Nowlan Park before the provincial championships began. "It was one of our first matches back. We were blowing off the cobwebs really. That day Kilkenny didn't have a lot of their bigger guns, TJ Reid, Colin Fennelly and these guys were just after winning a county final with Ballyhale. It gave us a great starting point but I wouldn't be reading a whole lot into it. Kilkenny won the match but both teams have had a lot of outings since and there's a lot of water under the bridge since that day in September."
Listen back to the Lár Na Páirce All Ireland Semi Final Preview Night ahead of the George Corbett Skoda Big Match Waterford v Kilkenny.
https://www.spreaker.com/user/wlrfm/allirelandsemifinalpreviewnight
