Cribbin finally living up to billing
Kildare ace is thriving in Cian O’Neill’s system
IT WAS worth the wait but it could be argued that Paul Cribbin’s match-winning tour de force last weekend against Mayo was eight years in the making.
The potential of the towering Johnstownbridge man has never been an issue, delivery has.
He was seen coming from way back, but it was an early summer’s evening in 2010 which confirmed to Kildare supporters they had a red-hot talent on their hands.
A Leinster minor quarter-final fixture with Dublin morphed into a three-game saga which gripped the county but it was Cribbin who put the thing to bed in the final game at Navan when he nailed five points.
And yet, it left folk with a bittersweet feeling. By that stage he was already halfway out the door and a couple of months later he signed a two-year international rookie contract, along with current Down star Caolan Mooney, with the AFL’s Collingwood.
In reality, he was gone even earlier. He made such waves playing for his school St Mary’s that it was reported he was approached by an AFL scout as he left the pitch in the aftermath of a Hogan Cup semi-final defeat to Coláiste na Sceilge.
Later that year he travelled to Melbourne for a trial that would serve as an induction course to the professional game.
He had all the core qualities for the AFL. He possessed the physical stature — he is 6’3” — with soft hands, good kicking skills and an impressive turn of pace for a big man.
It never worked out for him, though, but then he was not alone, with Kildare teammates Daniel Flynn (Port Adelaide) and Paddy Brophy (West Coast Eagles) also failing to make the cut.
Why that was is hard to figure, but it may be down to the difficulty of making the transition from one code to another or to professional sport’s high attrition rate. Cribbin’s experience, though, was stained by a disciplinary black mark. In his second season in Australia, on a night out, he was involved in an altercation which left him with a broken bone in his face, two teeth knocked out and a dressing down from his employers from which there was no coming back. ‘Given Cribbin was under the influence of alcohol, the club will separately be discussing the player’s conduct with him in due course,’ read a club statement, although there was no evidence that the Kildare man had instigated the incident. Indeed, to the contrary, police launched an investigation to seek out his assailants. However, it almost certainly marked the beginning of the end of his Collingwood career, but that has worked out just fine for him. He returned to his studies — he is now a qualified teacher — and to Kildare with some effect. Indeed, the effect was immediate, as he was part of a star-studded team which won the 2013 Leinster Under-21 Championship. Incredibly, nine of that team started against Mayo in Newbridge last Saturday with, alongside Cribbin, goalkeeper Mark Donnellan, David Hyland, Fergal Conway, Johnny Byrne, Tommy Moolick, Daniel Flynn and Brophy in from the start while Niall Kelly came in off the bench. His senior career began in tandem as he made his debut at the tail-end of Kieran McGeeney’s reign, in a second-round qualifier win over Louth before the shutters came down in the following round at home to Tyrone. It would be fair to say it is has been a slowburning career and certainly injuries have not helped — Cribbin missed out on the entire 2014 Championship. Consistency — which has also been a collective challenge for Kildare — has also been an issue. Versatility was as much a curse as a friend — he was played as a midfielder by Jason Ryan in 2015 when their summer came to a particularly brutal ending with a seven-goal hammering by Kerry in the All-Ireland quarter-finals.
Under Cian O’Neill, he has reverted to his favoured wing-forward role, and even though he officially plays at centre-forward he tends to play across the line.
That is facilitated by Kildare’s shape, the likes of his older sibling, Keith, and Fergal Conway tend to drop deeper and allow him to drift to the wings.
It would be wrong, however, to paint his form as an express train that has travelled hard down the track all season.
Indeed, he suffered such a dip in form this spring he was dropped to the bench for the round five and six Allianz League games against Kerry and Mayo.
One of his issues is that he can appear to play from another age, when talented half-forwards
played on the front foot and stung with purpose.
He has been accused of drifting in and out of games — although that is something that can be levelled at every game given the natural dynamic of a contest — but it was felt that he did not win enough ‘dirty’ ball or put enough emphasis into his defensive game.
This summer, though, has revealed the best of him and even when Kildare were at their worst — in the seven–point mauling by Carlow in the Leinster Championship — he still nailed 0-3 from play.
He has been Kildare’s best player in their last two matches — outstanding in a tense comeback win against Longford, even kicking the match-sealing score. And, of course, he was even better against Mayo, not just in kicking four points, but in running hard at them at every available opportunity, he set the tempo for the rest.
The fact he celebrated his 26th birthday in the midst of this summer run is a neat reminder that he is truly coming of age.