GIVEN MY BACKGROUND, I’m often asked to do sessions with club goalkeepers. Or coaches wonder what they might do to improve their keepers.
You’d usually respond with a few questions: Have they got an excellent touch? Can they catch any ball that comes in to them? Is their striking true every time?
If any of these is not 100% then they need to spend more time in the alley. Before anything else, a good goalkeeper has to be a good hurler. Just maybe the best hurler on your team.
What other player will get the ball in their hand more than 40 times, under no pressure from tacklers, with a chance to pick a pass that can quickly lead to a score? Who else on the team has to field every high ball and get it away quickly and accurately as a matter of routine? One half fumble of a ball dropping out of the sun with a full-forward fast closing costs three points. We’ve all been there. The remarkable thing is it doesn’t happen more often. Goalkeepers are good hurlers.
The two best goalkeepers in the country will take their place at opposite ends of Croke Park on Sunday, Limerick’s Nickie Quaid and Eoin Murphy of Kilkenny. It’s no coincidence they are exceptional hurlers.
Both have played out the field at county level. Quaid lined out as a wing-forward for Limerick in 2010 during Justin McCarthy’s time and Murphy played corner-forward for Kilkenny in 2012 against Cork in the league at Páirc Úi Chaoimh.
I was part of the Munster Railway Cup squad in 2016 and got a good view of Murphy as a corner-forward for Leinster. You couldn’t but be impressed at his immaculate touch and his awareness of what’s going on around him.
Both have excelled as outfield players with their clubs. Quiad has won a Munster IHC title with Effin, as a centre-back in 2011. Murphy won an All Ireland junior title with Glenmore in 2016, playing in different forward roles during their run.
You’d be confident to put either outfield tomorrow. There are very few players on either side you’d be as comfortable moving back to goals. I realise I’m not wearing my goalkeeper bias lightly here – but these two are at the pinnacle of the sport.
Who is better, and will swing the final their side’s way? That’s a tough call to make because they have different strengths, but I think Murphy has more scope to improve on last year’s decider.
If I was Murphy’s coach I’d be encouraging him to do more, to try more, to exploit more fully the range of his ability.
The one crucial quality for goalkeeping that I’ve not mentioned so far is the most obvious: shot-stopping. The reason being that it’s simply not as important as it used to be.
When I was coming through the grades in Cork I made progress due to my shot-stopping skills that I worked really hard on. This was the same with every goalie; our reputations were forged in flying saves, acts of bravery barely distinguishable from madness and the ability to welt the ball 90 yards down the field on top of the big man.
We all know that this has changed over the years. By 2017 I knew I had to alter my game. Pat Ryan arrived as Cork’s coach and helped me to see the game differently, encouraged me to work tirelessly on the accuracy and pace of my puckouts, made me understand that diving in for a point-blank save as Joe Canning winds up is not the only form of bravery.
Courage was backing yourself to execute that 60-yard puckout to a moving and fast-pursued target. Courage was to keep doing similar after you’d made an inevitable mistake or two. Your delivery should be of a standard that when the books were balanced you were in the black.
Part of Ryan’s instruction was due to the evolution of the game, part was necessity. With Pa Cronin gone we lacked natural ball winners up the field, so we had to adapt and move.
The situation was different in Kilkenny. Eoin Murphy had any number of good-in-the-air players to aim at, Brian Cody saw to that. I’m not sure Cody would have been a huge fan of short puckouts either – just a feeling. Though who could question him? Maybe John Kiely and Paul Kinnerk if they add another seven All-Irelands.
Yet now you unquestionably have to be able to mix the short with the long and medium. Murphy, with his array of sharp hurling skills, is an ideal candidate to grow in this area. If I was able to do it then he absolutely can.
One of my most cherished compliments came from Derek McGrath, who told me that his Waterford team would change how they set up to counter my puckouts. The idea that an opposition manager might say this to me a few years previously would have been far-fetched.
Opposition teams should be thinking hard about Murphy’s puckouts, but I’m not sure they are yet. His distribution is good – but it can become excellent. I read some interesting stats in a piece in the Irish Examiner by Eoghan Cormican from last year. Quaid hit 34 long puckouts in the 2022 final, with Limerick winning 24 of them for a 74% retention rate. Kilkenny had a 41% retention rate from 32 long puckouts.
There are a myriad of stories and factors behind these stats, but they tell us one thing for tomorrow. If Murphy and Kilkenny go down the throat of the Limerick half-back line then their chances of victory are diminished. Very simply, Kilkenny’s strong half-forwards will be up against Limerick’s towering half-backs and you’d do well to break even there in any contest.
So variety is the key for Kilkenny. There has been an evolution of their style under Derek Lyng but tomorrow needs a hint of revolution. The puckouts need variety of placement and pace. Limerick have to be kept guessing from minute one to 70-odd.
They are adept at hunting down short puckouts as well as winning long ones cleanly, but if they don’t know what’s coming at them then their energetic middle players don’t know whether to stick or twist.
As phenomenal a shot-stopper as Murphy is, that trait is unlikely to win the day. The timing and aesthetic of his glorious save from Clare’s Peter Duggan will arguably make it his career high point; it’s a high point for goal-keeping in general.
With the game in the balance, it was key to Kilkenny’s win. Yet the wider context is that it prevented one score in a 49-score game. And nowadays 49 scores is low.
A goalkeeper as brilliant as Murphy will make one, perhaps two, outstanding saves in a game. But you can be an architect in far more than six points if your delivery is on the mark all day.
This is an area where Quaid has the edge, for a couple of reasons. He’s an understated man, both in personality and his actions on the pitch. Everything is done with quiet efficiency. I’ve said before that he’s the Petr Cech of our sport. He brings serenity to his defenders, all of whom know that he’ll save every shot he should and many he shouldn’t and hit his targets from the puckout in such a way that it looks a matter of routine. He’s the classic mastercraftsman who makes a tough thing look simple.
He also has the luxury of the Limerick half-forward line. Not that any of his deliveries to them are aimless or lacking in strategy – but even if they were, how do you think that would go?
Anyone who can puck the ball a distance could send a delivery towards Gearóid Hegarty or Tom Morrissey and they would probably win it. So that’s always an option. But opponents can’t just mass bodies around this area and look to break the ball and then compete, because Quaid has the game and the receivers to mix it all up. Murphy needs to get the edge on him here to enhance Kilkenny’s chances of winning All-Ireland number 37 and stopping the four-in-a-row.
The goalkeeper battle is just one in what will be dozens of subplots which will eventually decide the destination of the Liam MacCarthy Cup. But it’s a vital one. As a goalkeeper myself, I couldn’t have more admiration for what this pair are doing, game after game, from one year to the next.
Far from Croke Park’s Broadway I made my own return to the nets for South Liberties, against Cappamore, last week. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed it. Despite eight months away from the game, you’re not long finding your old self. Even putting this column together and thinking about Eoin and Nickie you’re left with contrasting emotions: how much you respect them; how much you’d love to be back in their world. In direct competition.