THE NO1 PRIORITY
Goalkeepers the key concern for both Kerry and Galway camps
THE MAN who won’t be there will exercise an enormous influence on Croke Park this Sunday. Stephen Cluxton is now so regularly credited with reinventing goalkeeping that his impact is verging on cliché. Then Eamonn Fitzmaurice sits down and analyses the contemporary importance of the position, and Cluxton’s relevance is made anew.
Kerry and Galway will contest their All-Ireland quarter-final with concerns about their No1s prominent within their supporters’ thoughts.
Kevin Walsh changed his goalkeeper after Ruairí Lavelle’s difficulties against Mayo and Roscommon in the Connacht championship. Bernard Power took over for Saturday’s qualifier monstering of Donegal, and he should keep the shirt for this weekend.
‘It was a big decision,’ Walsh admitted afterwards, acknowledging the criticism his team took for their short-kick out tactics in the Connacht final. It was inevitable they would: the strategy misfired horribly.
One aspect of Kerry’s Munster final saunter against Cork was the difficulty Brian Kelly experienced with some of his re-starts. Limited as Cork were, their big middle-third players profited from some hanging kicks by Kelly, and at one point selector Liam Hassett could be seen talking to him as they tried to deal with Cork’s aggressive press.
The Kerry considerations have been complicated by the news last week that Brendan Kealy has left the panel. He was the goalkeeper when they last won the All-Ireland, in 2014, and was an All-Star a year later but he was, as Fitzmaurice revealed, unhappy with not getting his game this season.
‘It was disappointing and I was disappointed for Brendan himself, in particular,’ said Fitzmaurice in Tralee yesterday. ‘He was frustrated with a lack of gametime and you can understand that, especially with the position he’s in. Generally the way we’ve gone in the Championship, once one of the lads has got a hold of it, that’s been in it for the summer.
‘Brian has been playing very well as well. It was disappointing for him and he was frustrated. Again, I understand it. There were no hard feelings. I wished him the best of luck and it was mutual and that was it.’
Two goalkeepers were added to the squad in the aftermath of Kealy’s departure, Dr Crokes’ AllIreland winner Shane Murphy and Shane Ryan, who has two AllIreland minor medals and is the county Under-21 keeper.
Ryan played outfield for his club, Rathmore, but in recent weeks he has been positioned between the posts. Fitzmaurice merely smiled when the timing of that switch was mentioned to him, but Ryan is rated highly and fancied to wear the jersey in the long term.
Kelly should keep hold of it for Sunday, but he will be under a scrutiny unfamiliar to his predecessors. That is not necessarily for reasons particular to him, but because the role of the goalkeeper has been changed, to the point that they are judged as forensically as any forward now.
‘We all know it comes back to Stephen Cluxton, basically that he revolutionised the position,’ said Fitzmaurice. ‘I think in particular when Jim Gavin took over, [he] took Stephen Cluxton’s skill-set and made it very central to their game-plan.
‘It was always important but I think Jim Gavin started to get the absolute max out of Cluxton then. That changed the position for everyone, for managers and goalkeepers alike.
‘You still have to have the traditional skills of being able to save shots and catch high balls and deal with traffic around the square or whatever.
‘But obviously the kick-out is huge now and teams on their own kick-out work so hard in trying to secure possession and then trying to get something off the opposition’s kick-out as well.’ The introduction of the mark this season means longer kickouts facilitating high fielding bring a reward, but Fitzmaurice says longer restarts would have happened anyway as teams sought to think their way around opposing forward lines pressing up aggressively on a goalkeeper’s kicks. ‘I think for a while, the last two or three seasons, teams were conceding kick-outs and it was easy then just to chip it out and try to bring it up the field. ‘As teams have got more aggressive and pushed up more and made it harder for that short kickout to be effective, teams have started to go long again. And a lot of teams that go long, if you look at Galway, they have the personnel to go long.’
If another manager fills Fitzmaurice’s thoughts this week, it will be Kevin Walsh. He took time yesterday, though, to note the end of Peadar Healy’s time in Cork. They never laid a mark on Kerry in his two years, but Fitzmaurice praised his dignity in walking away.
‘That was a major sign of him, how dignified he was at the end. He’d have been well entitled to have had a bit of a cut as he was going. He did get a lot of stick. That’s the nature of the position, unfortunately. Peadar would have known that going in, he would have had his eyes wide open.
‘He worked with Conor Counihan. He was their coach when they won the All-Ireland in 2010. He knew up close and personal what it was like.’