IT CAN BE HARD TO KEEP ON GOING..
Lack of action looks like the No. 1 reason for calling time on a career
WHILE a thicket of inter- county footballers have announced their retirements over the past week in particular, the exodus in hurling has been less hectic.
There has been a noticeable shift among goalkeepers, however, with three of them making our list of top five hurling retirees here, and while Waterford netminder Stephen O’keeffe won’t be involved in 2021, he’s hardly played his last game for the county just yet.
Of the five, Anthony Nash, at 36, was the only one who was a first choice starter in the 2020 Championship, indicating that diminishing game time is often the most inf luential factor in players’ decisions around retirement.
ANTHONY NASH ( CORK)
1 Nash’s Cork career endured a difficult start as he shipped five goals on his Championship debut against Waterford when deputising for the banned Donal Og Cusack in 2007.
When Cusack ruptured an Achilles tendon in 2012, Nash seized his chance and quickly emerged as the best goalkeeper in the game, winning his first All Star at the end of that season. Having elevated his game to a level Cusack couldn’t reach, Jimmy BarryMurphy dropped the long- serving goalkeeper altogether the following year.
With a higher premium being placed on retention of possession from puckouts, Nash’s range of striking and his accuracy from restarts made him arguably Cork’s most important player, particularly when his scoring ability from frees and penalties was factored in.
Indeed, Nash’s close- in free- taking technique, scooping the ball well ahead d of himself before meeting it with lethal force, helped bring about a change in how penalties and 20- metre frees were taken in 2014.
He won his second All Star in 2013 as Cork fell just short of an All- Ireland.
That was as close as he came to ultimate honours, though he won three Munster titles before retiring last month.
SHANE DOWLING ( LIMERICK)
2 Ongoing problems with his knee meant the curtain came down on Dowling’s career all too soon as he announced his retirement in July at the age of just 27.
A superbly talented player,
Dowling’s ingenuity was probably best summed up by his magnificent batted goal against Kilkenny in the 2019
All- Ireland semi- final, as yet again he made a telling impact off the bench.
Having won an All Star in 2014, that was the role he was reduced to for the most part in the latter years of his ca career as his body st struggled to stand up to th the rigours of C Championship hurling ov over 70 minutes.
But it was a job that he embraced, with critical contributions as a sub during Limerick’s 2018 All- Ireland run- in, with goals in the semi- final and final victories over Cork and Galway respectively.
It’s a tribute to Limerick’s current strength that they didn’t miss him this year. Here’s hoping he makes it back for Na Piarsaigh.
JAMES SKEHILL ( GALWAY)
3 Skehill brought the curtain down on his inter- county career after 14 seasons just as the light went out on 2020.
Much of his days with Galway were spent battling with Colm Callanan for the No. 1 jersey and by 2012 he had firmly established himself as the first choice goalkeeper. Skehill made arguably the save of the year from Kilkenny’s Colin Fennelly in that year’s drawn All- Ireland final.
But a shoulder injury sustained in training the Friday night before the replay forced him to retire during the heavy defeat to Kilkenny and by the end of the following year’s campaign p g Callanan was back in goal.
Skehill was a non- playing sub for the 2017 All- Ireland win and d played throughout the 2018 campaign but after r Callanan retired at the end of 2019, Eanna Murphy was preferred in goal last year and, at 32, the Cappataggle man cashed in his chips.
EANNA MARTIN ( WEXFORD)
4 His may not be a name that rolls off the tongue but for endurance and service over a long number of years and in a broad range of roles, Eanna Martin deserves to be acknowledged.
By the time Wexford made their Championship exit against Clare in November, Martin had slipped to third choice goalkeeper having battled back from injury, so couldn’t even attend their games given the circumstances with Covid- 19.
It says much for his versatility, however, that at he played
Championship hurling in goal, defence and attack over the course of his 14 seasons with Wexford.
When he started out in 2007 they were hopelessly adrift of Kilkenny. But his patience paid off with a coveted Leinster medal in 2019, even if he didn’t appear in Croke Park when they beat Brian Cody’s side in the provincial final.
AIDAN WALSH ( CORK)
5Walsh’s best days in a Cork jersey were with the county footballers, having won an All- Ireland at 20 in 2010, when he also claimed an All Star and was named Young Footballer of the Year.
A second All Star came in 2012 but from there the footballers began to slip and after the hurlers came from the pa pack to almost snatch an A All- Ireland in sensational fa fashion in 2013, he played bo both codes the following ye year.
It paid off as he im immediately won a M Munster title with the hurlers in 2014, their first in eight years, but in the intervening seasons he moved between both panels without notable success and was exclusively a hurler by the time he recently announced his retirement having only fe featured as a sub in the 2020 C Championship.