ANTHONY NASH HAS established himself as Cork’s undisputed first-choice goalkeeper and one of the top hurlers in the country over the past decade.
The 34-year-old has won four senior Munster titles and earned two All-Stars for his performances with the Rebel County, as well as an All-Ireland intermediate medal with his club Kanturk in 2018.
However, as explained in the latest episode of Gillette Pressure Points, he had to bide his time as an understudy to the great Donal Óg Cusack before getting an opportunity to shine at inter-county.
“As long as he was playing well, he was going to be in goal and we knew that,” Nash says. “There were lads asking me ‘Why are you still doing it? You’re not going to get your game’ but I loved it. I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
“I wasn’t naive — I knew that it was going to take an awful lot and I knew there was a chance that it might never happen as well.”
A suspension for Cusack allowed Nash to make his senior championship debut against Waterford in 2007. Although he performed well, Cork conceded five goals as they suffered defeat in a free-scoring Munster semi-final.
“There was a time in my career when I was thinking ‘Jesus, that could be my only game for Cork’,” he remembers. “We were coming up against Paul Flynn, John Mullane, Eoin Kelly — a Waterford forward line in their prime.
“It was a cracking game and there were only three points in it when we hit the crossbar at the end to draw the game. I conceded five goals and we got three so it was an absolute shootout and the game was over before I knew it.
I didn’t want that to be the only game I played for Cork.”
He had to wait patiently on the sidelines for another five years before a second chance arose — this time during a league semi-final against Tipperary after Cusack was stretched off with a ruptured Achilles.
“White came onto my face,” Nash explains. “I went pale because management turned around to me and said ‘You’re on’. You’re sitting at 16 and as a goalie you’re not coming on. I couldn’t believe it.”
Nash dealt with the pressure of being thrown into the thick of the action brilliantly to help Cork book their place in the final.
And although management opted for Martin Coleman in the following game, he bounced back from the disappointment to cement his name on the teamsheet in the championship that year and win his first All-Star thanks to a string of outstanding displays.
“I’ll never take that jersey for granted,” he says, explaining how those experiences have helped to shape him. “Every time that a team is named, I’m absolutely thrilled to be playing because I know it’s a short turnover and it will be a couple of years’ time when I won’t be getting it anymore.”
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