Humble hero Nestor hopes spot luck isn’t necessary in Crokes’ Leinster club decider
THE match clock is ticking into the very last minute of normal time when Portlaoise midfielder Kieran Lillis lobs a ball across the Kilmacud Crokes square. Right at that moment, the scoreboard reads 1-17 to 3-8 in the Dublin champions’ favour with a place in a Leinster club football final up for grabs.
A thrilling end-to-end affair is going to have at least one more twist as Scott Lawless goes to ground, referee David Coldrick blowing his whistle and waving his arms wide. Penalty.
Of all the thoughts that are going through the head of Crokes’ goalkeeper David Nestor, ‘Brilliant, my time to be a hero’ isn’t one of them.
‘Absolutely not. I’m more than happy to go out there and not touch the ball for 60 minutes and progress through the competition. I prefer the quiet days when the team goes through.’
But this isn’t a quiet day. Three times he has had to pick the ball out of the back of his net. A fourth has the potential to force a massive momentum shift.
All the same thoughts must be going through Craig Rogers’ head as he places the ball down and prepares to take the kick.
‘You look at what foot he is,’ says Nestor. ‘Is he going to go across his body, or high into a corner – you try and gauge as much of that from how he sets up. Being honest, at the end of the day it’s a lot of luck.
‘You’re going to go one way – with a bit of luck he is going to put it that way, and it’s not too high, too hard, too nestled away in the corner. You get a hand to it and great, away you go.’
That captures pretty much what happens. Rogers picks his corner and chips a kick that if Nestor guesses wrong, is neatly tucked away. But Nestor guesses right and dives two-handed to palm the ball out for a ’45. In additional time, there isn’t another score.
‘If it had gone in, it would have been back level. There was three or four additional minutes to come so I think we still would have felt we would have got a chance, or two more chances, to go down and kick a point to level it up – even if they kicked another point.’
The prize is a Leinster final against Mullinalaghta St Columba’s, 10 years on from the provincial decider against Rhode that provided a springboard to All-Ireland glory. When the same sides met two years later at the same stage, a top-class penalty save from Nestor was crucial to the outcome that day too, depriving Niall McNamee.
In the years since, Nestor has seen the goalkeeper’s role radically redefined, the introduction of the kicking tee fast-tracking his own progress. ‘I found it difficult growing up as a young guy to kick it long and hard. The tee assisted in that. The game changed as a result.
‘Kick-outs are now called restarts – it’s all about the retention of possession It has reshaped the game. You see at inter-county level with other keepers like Rory Beggan and Graham Brody.’
Brody just happened to be at the other end of the field for Portlaoise the last day, continuing the form that saw him nominated for an All-Star and bringing another dimension to the position by sallying forward out of goal to act as a 15th outfield player at times.
Nestor laughs at the idea that he is about to mimic Brody or Beggan and dash forward in search of a score at Tullamore this afternoon. ‘I don’t think anyone needs to worry about seeing me tear down the pitch. I’m lucky in that the 14 players we have outfield are more than capable.
‘You’re always nervous, the further you go out – you can almost feel the chill, that you’re away from the posts.’
Yet he understands the rationale. ‘Absolutely it’s high risk but if you talk to a lot of forwards, they don’t really know what to do if they see a keeper coming out. That can be used as an advantage. It’s definitely exciting. I thought the game against Portlaoise was incredibly exciting because both teams went man-to-man – that’s the way football should be played.
‘You’re four or five points up and you can concede a goal or two quickly when it’s man to man. But from an excitement point of view, I like to see it played that way.’
That’s why he’s a fan of the new inter-county experimental rules that were rolled out in the O’Byrne Cup yesterday. The rules are an attempt to protect the core skills of the game such as kicking and high-catching and counteract massed defences. The new kick-out being taken from the 20-metre line rather than the ’13 is one he will be keeping a close eye on. ‘Time will tell whether it will help. Football as a whole definitely needs changes. Particularly with the way teams are setting up, how it’s gone quite defensive. I’d welcome changes that will improve the speed of the game.’
While it’s easy to frame today’s final between a southside Dublin stronghold and a half-parish in north Longford of roughly 400 people in terms of a numbers game, Nestor doesn’t buy it. ‘They have shown that numbers don’t really matter. At the end of it, it’s 15 on 15 so whether you’ve the pick of 1,000 people or 10,000 people, it’s your best 15 go out. We give them the respect they deserve.’
Now 33, the timing of this year’s campaign makes it hard not to think of where it all ended 10 years ago. ‘In the Leinster final, we were six points down at half-time, had a man sent off against Rhode and managed to get over that. We were blessed to win an All-Ireland that year.
‘That was my first year. Two years later we were in another county final, another All-Ireland final. I thought this was going to be the norm. This year, it was eight years since we competed and won a county final. It’s almost like it’s new again. You try to get the point across to the younger lads, that this doesn’t happen every year; that it requires an incredible amount of work, of dedication.’