He was big and strong and nothing would run through his channel. English was forced to make the call.

"It's strange seeing him play for Kildare but I spoke to him and he loves it and it means a lot to him. He was an exemplary man to train and his appetite for work was phenomenal. He was always a big part of my plans from the time he came into the Tipp squad in 1999." Such was the enormity of that role, his manager was worried heading into the first round against Clare. Suffering from injury, Kennedy failed to start and wasn't in full flight when leaving the bench. "We were worried all right because he was the lynchpin of that side.

He held it together and was a huge loss. But we made it through and that year he played a massive part in winning an All Ireland." Now, if Kildare win today he'll be the first man to have claimed medals in the top two hurling competitions in the country.

"After that though the confidence seemed to have gone."

Quickly it ran from Kennedy and it's not all that difficult to work out why. The following season Tony Griffin took him for six points, although Tipperary escaped that day.

Come the Munster final though they didn't, as Ken McGrath scored six of Waterford's 2-23, with Kennedy his opposite number. That was as good as the end. He spent two years on the bench and although he came back a little in 2005 he was demolished by Niall McCarthy in the provincial decider and so came an end to his intercounty career. Or so he thought. "It's not something I really like getting into, " says Kennedy ahead of today's clash with Westmeath. "It's nothing to do with things going wrong or anything like that. It's the fact I'm a Kildare hurler now, but people are looking back to those times when there is an All Ireland final coming up and I'm part of it. As far as I'm concerned 2001 is a lifetime ago and for me this game today means the Earth to me.

To us all. And it's why it annoys me the GAA don't promote it a little more. Some great heads sat down and came up with a really good competition that's competitive and all the games are close. But once they created it they seemed to let it off on it's own, when it needed guidance and sponsorship.

"It gets very little air play, the competition as a whole, and it'd be no harm somebody speaking up for it. Look at it this way, Westmeath won it [in 2005], beat Dublin on TV the next year and haven't been seen since. And this will be the first time ever a Kildare hurling side will have been seen on television and there's something just not right about that. It's a bad reflection on the competition too. But you know what, I've been here for six years now in Kildare, there's a strong, albeit small, hurling community. The under-21s were barely beaten by Dublin earlier in the year and they are now in an All Ireland final and getting all this credit. Kildare deserve that credit too and if we can win it I'd like to think people will take notice because I know I will and I'd have two All Ireland medals that would sit side-by-side."

KILDARE C Cunningham; T Finnerty, P Reidy, R Tynan; D Harney, D Kennedy, M Maloney; C Buggy, B White; K Divilly, T Spain, P O'Brien; B Byrne, A McAndrew, O Lynch
WESTMEATHM Briody; N Gavin, P Greville, C Jordan; P Dowdall, D McCormack, B Connaughton; J Shaw, P Clarke; R Whelan, B Murtagh, A Mitchell; B Kennedy, D McNicholas, D Carty
CHRISTY RING CUP FINAL KILDARE vWESTMEATH Croke Park, 12.15 Referee J Sexton (Cork) Live, RTE Two, 12.00