Henry Shefflin

Give us your take then, Rory, on some of the Hurling managerial changes.

Henry Shefflin into

Kilkenny? Listen, I suppose the first thing to say is what a servant to Kilkenny Hurling and what an innings Derek Ling gave as a player, an incredible player and a manager at underage and at senior level.

But a big job of work there for Henry now to come in.

And I don't know, you'll have a better idea.

Like, even if you think about their football contemporaries or Nicky Rackard or any of these boys, like, or even down to modern day, like, I'm not sure, like, was Henry Shefflin still working in the bank when he was kind of doing all those things with Henny? Like, it is, I guess, the difference is that I...

I wonder what the difference is.

I suppose you're living through the other one.

He has won multiple awards for his journalism and for his books.

On the books front, he has ghostwritten seven sports autobiographies for the likes of Henry Shefflin, Colm Cooper, Nicky English, Eddie O'Sullivan, and of course, Paul McGrath.

McGrath's Back from the Brink was published in '06, uh, 20 years ago, to huge acclaim, and obviously became an instant, uh, classic of the genre.

And now, in what he himself has called an indulgence, he has written book number eight.

Mice on a treadmill, I think at one stage you described the pack as.

Yeah.

Um, writing the book, thinking a lot about your career, looking through the archives, has it led you to feel, um, in any way regretful at the life you chose, or did it maybe reaffirm a sense of, God, what, it w- on the whole it was really good and I'm glad I did that? 'Cause, you know, even at one stage Henry Shefflin asked you, "Are you glad you retired?" Or, or, "How are you feeling?" And you said, um, "It no longer feels like an adult occupation."

Yeah.

It's hard to know, isn't it? Like, Obviously, the medals record's been broken.

So, a few times with the Shefflin and everything else.

But, like, the only person that seems close to it is Shefflin, right? But I don't know if you were...

Maybe.

Maybe it depends where you are in the country.

But I never got the impression that there was anything Henry Shefflin could do that would let him pass out Christy Ring.

Right? So, even at the time, like, when you're going and you're getting 10th and everything and all these records, incredible...

great Kenny team but I never got the impression that anyone was like it'll just take one or two more things but I he had a great line ring an amazing line really when you think about it that I'm paraphrasing it but he's like his kind of thing was the best hurlers are yet to come which is an incredible kind of thing but prescience from him like and again it kind of it hints at just his preoccupation with the game loving the game and loving what it can be and what it was and everything but I don't know if someone can come along who could surpass him just because he's occupied that space now for so long.

I think Ray Keane's by far and away the best, but you could argue that Katie Taylor is as great as anyone Ireland has ever produced, which is absolutely insane.

I don't think we should discount our own greats as well in our own sports, like Henry Shefflin from York County and plenty more as well.

I think we've been blessed with great sports people for as long as Ireland has been around, and Katie Taylor is the latest.

Isn't it like we're a small little nation and we've had lots of, you know, battles through history.

I suppose just a couple of things to be clear on, John.

We've done this process two years ago with the appointment of Micheál Donoghue, two years previously with Henry Shefflin.

I've dealt with people that ended up not doing this job.

Their names have never been out there.

But Kilkenny only scored nine points that day.

Now, when was the last time we seen... a team with Henry Shefflin, DJ Carey, Eddie Brennan, Owen Larkin, Marin Comfort only score nine points.

You're after throwing out some stat there.

We'll have to find out when was the last time Kilkenny didn't hit double digits in a championship game? Like that was it.

I think you're an unbelievable player.

I think he's only ever probably...

the 2018 All-Ireland Final aside from that he's been exceptional in all the other All-Ireland Finals I'm going to put Gareth Hegarty out to 11 I'm going to put Laurent 7 so I'm going to go Shane O'Donnell 1 Nicky English 2 Keane Lynch 20 21 performance 3 Seamus Callaghan 2016 performance number 4 Henry Shefflin number 5 23 12 first day out final Brian Whelan 1998 number 6 I'm going to go Larry Corbett number 7 2010 Tony Kelly's performance in 2024 number 8 I'm going to go Tommy Welch's performance in 2009 he's in at 9 DJ's performance the Millennium Year in a 10 and sorry, Gary O'Deagherty, I'm just going to push out the number 11.

He's already at number 11 as well, by

In order for the top to be successful, you need to be successful at the bottom.

Um, in terms of, I, I know at a recent county board meeting during Henry Shefflin's ratification, he actually made a point of addressing the county board.

It, it-- So that suggests to me that there's a buy-in across the board from those that are going to be coaching teams from the top man that is Henry Shefflin right the way down.

Completely.

And I, I'll just give you an example.

the musical acts.

So can I just say-

But they're not talking about Henry Shefflin go- or, or the Key- Keith Kenny or any of the good...