10 FACES THAT SHAPED THE HURLING YEAR OF 2017
EMOTIONS RAN HIGH IN SEASON FOR TRUE
THIS hurling year was all about images. The embrace of a son and father as Liam MacCarthy finally — after all these years — crossed the Shannon once again.
A distraught manager being consoled by his assistant on the Croke Park sod as their team comes up agonisingly short on the biggest day. One of the greatest players of his generation watching his wonder-point sail over the bar to win a mesmeric All-Ireland semi-final. A manager watches on, inside a box, as he awakens a sleeping giant in the south-east.
Each of those images captured in a different way the power of the GAA.
But the past 12 months also threw up a once-promising underage talent who came back from a heart condition that had threatened his inter-county career, a Kurdish refugee who discovered what it was like to hurl on the Croke Park turf and even a Polish fitness guru who has been the missing link for the past two AllIreland champions.
Here are 10 of the faces that shaped the hurling year of 2017...
1 MICHEÁL DONOGHUE (GALWAY)
DONOGHUE deserves top spot for master-minding the plan that saw Liam MacCarthy cross the Shannon for the first time in 29 years, ensuring a happy ending at last for the romantic team in Gaelic games.
But he was also at the heart of the most touching moment of the hurling summer. When the Galway team bus stopped off in Ballinasole, the manager met his father Miko for the first time since winning the All-Ireland final. INPHO photographer Morgan Treacy was on hand to record the emotional scene when Donoghue was able to hand the Liam MacCarthy cup to his father.
It was a picture that illustrated why the GAA means so much to so many of us. And why it is, above all else, about family.
During his two years in charge, the understated and quietly-spoken Donoghue had a reputation for being as inscrutable as Jim Gavin as he worked towards ending Galway’s All-Ireland famine. And they did it in the most unGalway-like fashion, not scoring a goal in their last four Championship games.
When the final whistle blew in the final, there was a noticeable outpouring of emotion as the Galway hurlers, the most romantic of all, had finally claimed the big prize again.
2 DEREK McGRATH (WATERFORD)
IF the shot of Micheál Donoghue and his father was the image of the hurling year, the picture of an emotional Derek McGrath resting his head on Dan Shanahan’s shoulder after Waterford came up just short in the All-Ireland final was a close second.
It was a snapshot of just how much the likeable English teacher pours into making Waterford a hurling force — he was so consumed by the job that he took parental leave from his teaching post at De La Salle college earlier this year. McGrath is so articulate and candid that he will always be liked by the media, but the true measure of his ability as a manager is the esteem in which his players hold him.
Having had to endure plenty of brickbats, both locally and nationally, for using the sweeper system to build his team, Waterford’s superb performance in extra-time against Kilkenny and in the semifinal against Cork proved that McGrath’s way is working. Perhaps, a good man will get his just reward next summer.
3 JOE CANNING (GALWAY)
THERE had been summers when he provided more fireworks, when he displayed more of his genius, but he was correctly named Hurler of the Year. Canning didn’t carry the Tribesmen on his back last summer, as he has done many times since his sensational senior debut. If he had, they wouldn’t be AllIreland champions.
But he drove and led the county to their emotional All-Ireland title. He was the orchestrator, with baton in hand, and displayed leadership when it was badly needed. Think of the All-Ireland semi-final against Tipperary, the watershed match of the Championship.
Not only did Canning win the match with that extraordinary point, when he somehow fired the sliotar over the bar from 50 metres out despite being caged in on the sideline, he also scored the final seven points of his team’s tally. Leadership when needed.
In the final against Waterford, Canning set the tone within 30 seconds, shooting the first score. And on an afternoon when he and his team-mates were competing with the county’s ghosts of the past 29 years, Canning was flawless from placed-balls. Vital on All-Ireland final day.
4 DAVY FITZGERALD (WEXFORD)
THE charismatic Clareman electrified the Model County to such an extent that more than 60,000 spectators came to Croke Park for the Leinster final. It was an eventful year for Fitzgerald, as he engineered an unlikely escape from Division 1B, at the expense of Galway and Limerick, and then saw himself banished to a box high up in the stand for eight weeks for his infamous pitch incursion against Tipperary in the League semi-final.
Fitzgerald was still able to rub some of his magic off on the players, as Lee Chin’s sensational display against Kilkenny inspired the team to a famous Leinster semi-final win in Wexford Park. It was a wonderful journey for the county this year. With Fitzgerald confirming he’s sticking around, they need to frank their credentials as contenders by picking up silverware in 2018.
5 LUKASZ KIRSZENSTEIN (GALWAY)
THE strength & conditioning coach shuns the limelight, but his effect on the Galway players was clear to see this year. They simply dwarfed all their opponents. Not only did they out-score them, but they out-muscled and over-powered them as well.
When Galway poached the Polish native from the Tipperary back room in October of last year, it was considered a bit of a coup. Tipp’s Padraic Maher had credited Kirszenstein’s training with making him faster and more nimble last year, on the way to their All-Ireland success.
‘He is a top-quality strength and conditioning coach,’ Galway captain David Burke said earlier this year. ‘Maybe lads have got a small bit bigger and stronger. He has brought in some new ideas and maybe lads are fitter as a whole.’
Based in Limerick, the Pole has also worked with the Ireland women’s rugby team and the Munster rugby academy. But having conditioned the last two AllIreland hurling champions, he is now being viewed as a secret ingredient in our national sport.
6 CONOR GLEESON (WATERFORD)
ONE of the what-ifs that will be long debated into this Waterford winter is what how the All-Ireland final might have transpired if the 20-year-old Fivemilewater native was available to the Déise side. He had spent the summer filleting reputations of some of the best forwards in the game. He was Derek McGrath’s go-to defender to neutralise the opposition dangerman.
In the Munster semi-final, Gleeson was given the task of handling Shane Kingston, who was on fire against Tipperary. On a day when the Waterford machine sputtered, Gleeson was superb as Kingston was held scoreless and substituted after 55 minutes. When they met Kilkenny in the qualifiers,
Gleeson nullified Richie Hogan to the extent that the former Hurler of the Year was hooked after 63 minutes. In the All-Ireland quarter-final, Wexford’s Conor McDonald was subbed after 59 minutes as Gleeson had him in his back pocket.
A moment of madness in striking out against Patrick Horgan as Waterford cruised to an All-Ireland final was the only black mark on a tremendous season for Gleeson. But the UCC student is bound to learn from that and he has a decade, or more, of neutralising the opposition’s best forward ahead of him.
7 MICHAEL CAHALANE (CORK)
THERE wasn’t a more heart-warming story in this GAA season than that of the 22-year-old Bandon native, who came off the bench against Tipperary in the Munster Championship and scored a goal within a couple of minutes of making his Championship debut. The well has looked dry at underage level in Cork in recent years, but Cahalane had been earmarked as a rare shining light. His excellent form for Cork minors in 2013 and a strong Harty Cup campaign with Hamilton High School that winter saw him called up to the senior squad by Jimmy Barry-Murphy. However, in the spring of 2014, Cahalane (right) was diagnosed with a heart condition at only 19 years of age and his promising hurling career looked over. In June of last year though, doctors gave him the green light to return to action. He helped Bandon win the intermediate championship in Cork and earned a recall to the seniors. Having made his first appearance off the bench against Waterford in the League, his goal against Tipperary signalled his return and a remarkable recovery.
8 JASON FORDE (TIPPERARY)
THE Silvermines man had to sit out the Munster championship defeat to Cork for getting involved with Davy Fitzgerald during the incident in the National League semi-final. But even though Tipperary took the one-match suspension on the chin, it didn’t sit well in the Premier County for the rest of the summer, as Tipp secretary Tim Floyd made clear in his recent report to county convention. Forde was initially slapped with a two-match ban for his infamous clash with Fitzgerald, but that was downgraded to a single game by the Central Hearings Committee. But Floyd suggested that Forde’s involvement was ‘trivial’ and that he was made an example of because of the highprofile of the other individual involved. ‘I still believe Jason Forde was just guilty by association in an incident that received wide-scale publicity because of the high profile of one of the personalities involved,’ Floyd wrote. Forde came back and was a scoring substitute in that epic semi-final against Galway, but his summer suffered from the standing start because of his unintentional part in a ‘trivial’ incident.
9 KYLE HAYES (LIMERICK)
LIMERICK seniors had to endure the shortest of summers, only getting two games but it was a season that had the promise of a brighter tomorrow for the county, with a second Under 21 All-Ireland title in three years. And central to that was Kyle Hayes. The Kildimo man captained the Treaty minors to an All-Ireland final in 2016 and John Kiely gave him a chance with the senior team that he grabbed with both hands.
He scored a goal against Clare in the Munster semi-final and was their most impressive player when going down to Kilkenny in the qualifiers, showing a fighting spirit throughout. But it was at U21 level that he truly shone, as his performances from centre-back were the platform for the Shannonsiders’ success. There are a lot of talented young hurlers in Limerick and Hayes could be the best of
the lot.
10 ZAK MORADI (LEITRIM)
THIS one flew under the radar but in June of this year, Moradi (left), a Kurdish refugee from Iraq, became the first asylum-seeker to play in an All-Ireland final in Croke Park when he lined out for Leitrim in the Lory Meagher Cup decider against Warwickshire. He scored a point, too, although it was in vain as Liam Watson inspired the English county to victory.
Moradi and his family fled Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime in the mid1990s, settling in Carrick-on-Shannon. The small, soccer-loving child became transfixed by Ireland’s national sport. He subsequently moved to Tallaght, where he is a corner-forward for Thomas Davis senior hurlers, but was determined to represent Leitrim, the county where he first lived and learned the sport.
In an interview with this paper back in May, the 26-year-old feels Gaelic games is the perfect vehicle to integrate refugees.
‘It is a great way to integrate into the community. It might take a generation to happen, but we will see more county players from different backgrounds in Croke Park.’
Canning’s leadership qualities were vital to Galway