LAST WEEKEND, THERE was a hugely entertaining Man of the Match interview after Clubber TV had streamed a group game of Tipperary hurling championship, a win for Mullinahone over Nenagh Eire Óg.
The winner was none other than Eoin Kelly, the two-time All-Ireland champion from 2001 and 2010, who has since gone back to his goalkeeping roots, impressing enough to claim his reward of a physio voucher.
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— Clubber (@clubber) August 28, 2023
"Lads saying last night watching Clubber, Tipperary have got it right! It's a very exciting Championship!"
We caught up with Eoin Kelly yesterday after a massive performance by himself and a massive win for Mullinahone.
Full game available on https://t.co/8RTIDVIpju pic.twitter.com/GmZgTiY4J2
41 years of age, still hurling away and combining it with his role as Waterford selector under Davy Fitzgerald.
And yet, he’s not even the eldest stateman of the team, with fellow Tipperary All-Ireland winner Paul Curran in front of him at full-back at the age of 42.
That’s what it is, as he says, to come from a rural club. He happily admits that he probably wouldn’t be able for an outfield position now. And if he was in a club with greater numbers, he would have been put out to pasture by now.
But still he plays, 21 years after Mullinahone won their only Tipperary championship, Kelly hitting 2-7 in that replay win over Thurles Sarsfields.
Back in April 2020 with the country in lockdown, he spoke about his early years as a netminder on the Tipperary team, telling The 42; “I did enjoy it. I’d have no problem going back into goal now. The way the goalkeepers play now that you have the scope to come out the pitch, take a handpass off a corner-back, the odd one has a pot for a score. You would have liked to be, let’s call it the seventh defender, the quarterback.
“Years ago it was just, ‘puck it as long as you can.’ The goalkeeper was stuck to the line, nowadays he has to be off his line. I’d like to play as the modern ‘keeper now, it’s a bit more exciting, he’s on the ball a bit more, seeing more of the action.”
And now? “That’s the Law of Attraction!” he laughs.
There’s previous to all of this. As a minor, he filled in for Fergal Horgan in the Tipperary goals for Munster championship games against Waterford and Limerick while Horgan was serving a suspension, freeing Kelly up to go back outfield.
In 2000, Nicky English brought him in to training in Semple Stadium. During the drills he functioned as an outfield player, but for the in-house matches he was the opposite number of Brendan Cummins.
“Depending on what night and numbers. You were freelancing!” he explains.
“But all you did was puck the ball out and read it off your own instinct. You would see maybe your number 12 was after winning the last two puckouts so you throw it down on him again and again.”
Now, there are certain nuances to the position.
“I find the difference is you are trying to create space in a different area by giving a puckout to a different spot. Really mix it up. There’s more analysis being done of the opposition, so your goalkeeper’s job spec has increased, to put it in a nutshell.
“Some keepers don’t like getting the ball back off their backline. Sometimes it’s better that they have experience of playing outfield with their club and are comfortable on the ball, such as Anthony Nash playing outfield with Kanturk, Nickey Quaid with Effin, Brian Hogan, Eoin Murphy, all playing outfield.”
That he can go in goal means he is able to play. And he scored 1-1 in last weekend’s game; a free from his own 45 that sailed over, and nailed a penalty too. On his way up the pitch he was accosted with a thump from a Nenagh player that earned him a red card.
Who else? 🙌
— Clubber (@clubber) August 28, 2023
The son of God himself and yesterday's #Clubber MOTM, Eoin Kelly slotting a penalty yesterday for @mullinahonegaa as they went on to beat Nenagh Éire ÓG.
Full game available here 👉📺 https://t.co/8RTIDVIpju pic.twitter.com/FGE2QhSBdv
“I suppose, I think every day I find, I am learning something and I have seven or eight matches played this year,” he says.
“I am not just throwing that out. There is one thing every day. It might be something as small as the wind conditions. For example maybe taking a small bit of pace off the puckout with the wind.
“Because if you are a forward, you are trying to control that ball and it is coming at you at 120 miles an hour.
“So, I took a puckout in our first match and put it right down on the corner-forward. Some people were saying, ‘sure jaysus he should have caught that!’
“And I took responsibility then because it was my delivery. I should have let it go ten yards short so he could run into it. Instead of it coming down his throat. So I learned that and I learn something everyday.”
Blame young love if you must, but the origin story of the fly-goalkeeper in Gaelic football took root in Charlestown, at a time when John Casey thought it was all over for him.
Known as a dangerous inside forward on the Mayo teams of the mid-90s, what should have been his prime years were petering out in agony and injury, not least with severe bouts of Morton’s Neuroma in his feet that were operated upon several times.
So when Charlestown were faced with All-Ireland champions Crossmolina Deel Rovers in the first round of the Mayo championship in 2001, optimism was low. So low in fact, that the regular goalkeeper booked a holiday with his girlfriend, rather than show up for a date with Kieran McDonald facing him.
Charlestown manager Stephen Healy – a nephew of John Healy, author of the definitive book on managed decline of rural communities; ‘No One Shouted Stop!’, asked Casey if he would fill in as goalkeeper.
And he did it his way.
He wasn’t much of a stopper, so he would create; come off his line and join the attacks. And blank out the roars of the crowd and various selectors calling him names, ordering him back into the goals.
They swept their way to their first Mayo title in 99 years with victory over Knockmore in the replay.
Onwards then, through Roscommon Gaels in the Connacht semi-final and Annaghdown of Galway in the decider in Tuam Stadium.
The All-Ireland semi-final? Colin Corkery scored all of Nemo Rangers’ 0-9 to win by two points.
“I won two county senior titles and a Connacht title for my sins as a goalie,” recalls Casey.
“I remember at the time, we had no huge stars. We had a solid team but the beauty of it was way back then, every player used to pass the ball back to me.
“There was one corner back. I’m not gonna name him now, but he was old stock and he never passed the ball back to me! And I used to railroad him for it. Because I got the ball out of trouble every single time. I put on the burners and got it out of danger.
“But I’d be up around the half-back line and all of a sudden you’d hear it from the crowd, ‘Get back into goals!’
“And I find it absolutely hilarious now to see the freedom that goalkeepers get. I was trying to do it 22 years ago when you weren’t allowed to do it.”
There were days when he was wishing it all away. In 2007, they met Ballina in a county final. He made a couple of smart saves in that game, but all anyone ever reminds about in that day was a high ball that came in, he – by his own admission – flapped at it, and who else but David Brady was on hand to stick it in the net.
The sledging and the carry-on that day meant that Casey and Brady, two men that went way back, didn’t speak to each other for two years.
But his confidence was absolute, even winning the title of the Mayo Footballer of The Year in 2009 as Charlestown won their third county championship.
On a macro scale, the goalkeeping world was spinning and evolving. A revolution was afoot, inspired by various innovations in hurling. By 2011, Dublin goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton would even have the honour of kicking the winning score in an All-Ireland final.
Now, the position is unrecognisable. Even from three seasons ago. Several managers have dispensed entirely with the stationary goalkeeper and now require an additional outfield player.
With the role of the goalkeeper now among the very most important on the pitch, along with your scoring forwards and detailed man-markers, it’s become a difficult place for young players to break through.
Take even a good minor goalkeeper from three years ago. If they were good at shot-stopping, safe under a high ball and had a kickout like a mule, it’s not enough right now for managers seeking to create overlaps, complete assurance on the ball and even a score or two from their number 1.
This is the situation that Down’s 2010 All-Star, Kevin McKernan has found himself in as he lined out for Burren in last weekend’s win over Warrenpoint in the championship. Manager Jim McCorry has re-imagined him as a custodian, saying that McKernan would take any jersey, as long as he is playing.
“We had been rotating three goalkeepers throughout the league. I had actually picked up a bad injury myself, I sliced my ankle in the league in a seconds game and I had 15 stitches. It put me out for three to four weeks,” McKernan explains.
“But at that time, Jim said to me that he had been toying with the idea for a while and asked for my opinion. Having played sweeper most of my life, you are nearly now navigating from defence to another position.
“Really, I am playing it as I see it. I’m not that adventurous. You look at Stephen Cluxton, he never goes out past the tip of the ‘D’. And then you look at others who are using it as a weapon.”
Once he retired from Down duty, time freed up. He has played under some of the best coaching minds in the game and immerses himself in strategy, taking the Burren U15 side with his father, the 1991 All-Ireland winning corner-back, Brendan.
He was also on the coaching ticket of the Down ladies this year when they won the All Ireland Junior title. In ladies’ football, the defender receiving a kick out can play it straight back to the goalkeeper. They used that tactic all year to create an instant overload in getting the ball up the pitch.
And he had prior experience. At 15, he played goals for the Burren U21 team. It earned him a call-up to the county minor team in that position.
“So I am enjoying it,” he smiles, “bringing my qualities to it – I played sweeper for Down for years so I think I can organise things a wee bit.
“Every ‘keeper now, you can see how structures are set up from coaches, a lot of it comes from the communication from goalkeepers so that’s why I am enjoying it. Whenever I am asked to do something I always try, so this time when I was asked, it was a bit of a gunk to be asked, but you were responding to the faith somebody was putting in you.”
He adds, “I have linked in with Niall Morgan for a conversation about it. It’s the simple things, the amount of practise, and being incorporated into the full team training as well for your skillset. It’s all about incorporating your goalkeeper into the overall training.”
Far from a retirement home, the position of goalkeeper is keeping illustrious veterans as busy as ever.