by Brendan Cole
Former Cork and Limerick manager Donal O’Grady has told other teams they need to match Kilkenny’s physicality if they are to beat them in this year’s Championship.
The Cats, who will begin their campaign at th end of June, reclaimed their All-Ireland crown from Tipperary in September last year to win their fifth title in six and also beat Cork in a one-sided Allianz League final a week-and-a-half ago.
To some, the style of hurling played by Brian Cody's team is a little too rough and ready and needs to be toned down. But O’Grady says that a robust approach to the game is nothing new to Kilkenny hurling.
Responding to a question from an @RTEgaa twitter ChrisOMuraile, O'Grady said: "That’s nothing new. Kilkenny were always a physical team. If you go back 20 or 30 years, Kilkenny were a physical team. They say themselves that they learned a lot from Tipp in the 1960s and they put that to good effect from them on.
"They are physical but they are good hurlers, they are strong, they are fast and they have all the attributes of a very good team. They are well organised and they play to a system that suits them and is very hard to break down."
According to O’Grady, Kilkenny’s style comes from within the county, and it is up to other teams to match them both physically and tactically.
He added: "At club level, that is the way they play. It is what they grew up with. I see nothing wrong with it, once it is within the rules of the game. If you want to match them, you have to match them physically and you have to match them with a system to play their system.
"At the moment, you would say after their League victory that it is going to be very, very difficult for anybody to get up to that level."
