Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
No.1 IN A MILLION
Davis consolation an early blip on road to greatness for Cluxton
STEPHEN CLUXTON didn’t make much of an impression on Padraic Davis.
Initially, at least.
Davis was Longford’s blue chip forward when Cluxton made his first Championship appearance for Dublin on May 27, 2001. This evening, against Monaghan, he’ll make his 89th, setting a new mark in All-ireland SFC history.
“He was a slight little fella at the time,” recalls Davis, (below, now and then). “He would have been 19/20.
“He had the face of a 16- or 17-year-old. He probably still has, and a very, very slight frame.
“What he has gone on to achieve is remarkable. I didn’t really pass that much remarks on him that day.”
Dublin only led Longford by a point at half-time but were well out of sight come the end and Cluxton was closing in on a clean sheet on his debut before Davis blasted a consolation goal past him.
“The goal I got actually was a quick free kick from around the 21. There was only him and Paul Curran on the line and I suppose he was so slim and I said, ‘Let’s have a go at it’ and I just shot it past him.”
Even before Dublin ascended to new heights from 2011 onwards, Davis had already made up his mind that Cluxton was the greatest goalkeeper of all time.
“Within that Dublin camp, I’d imagine that management leaves kickout strategies to him and he is in charge of that because I can’t see any point in anybody else trying to manage that,” he said.
“I would think it is solely left to him to work with the core group that’s going to be on the end of those. At this stage, it’s 15 players with the way Dublin are drilled.
“I’d say that some day Jim Gavin or these guys will come out and say, ‘We basically left the whole kickout strategy to him, he managed it in line with the other players and we didn’t get involved’ because he’s such a superb footballing brain but his ability to work out kickout strategies and, more importantly, to think on his feet.
“Let’s face it, we’re talking about seconds to think here and he’s able to sort it out. He deserves phenomenal credit for that and it really has been a revolution in Gaelic football, how the middle third is played.”
Davis is now involved in coaching and management and was in charge of the Longford under-21s a few years back. Coaches at all grades now are being forced down avenues that weren’t even afforded an afterthought a decade or more ago due to the emphasis Cluxton’s excellence has placed on retention of possession.
“He has raised the bar so high that all county squads are emulating them or at least trying to,” said Davis.
“In an awful lot of cases, they know exactly what they want to do but they just haven’t got the class to execute it the way he can. That has become a problem.
“We’ve seen even this year already, ‘keepers really messing up and costing their team games.
“That hasn’t happened with him and that’s the most remarkable thing of all. All his kickouts are on the edge, the fine margins, and he’s carrying them out to the letter of the law.
“It’s extraordinary really because if anybody else was trying to carry out what he’s doing every day they go out, more often than not they’ll make a mess of it.”
As many quality players as Dublin have produced in more recent times, they haven’t stamped their authority all over the latter stages of the Championship. So it’s reasonable to suggest that, without Cluxton, their haul of four All-irelands since 2011 would be more meagre.
Davis added: “You hear Dublin are an unbelievable team, which they are, but Dublin have sailed close all the time.
“When it comes to business end of things, they’re not running away with them so I’d say there’s a case to be made that they wouldn’t win an All-ireland without him.
“That’s the biggest compliment I can pay the guy. If you’re coming that close I don’t think any piece can be missing and certainly Stephen Cluxton cannot be.
“We’ll never see his likes again. I know now we’re talking about how great he is but I felt a long, long time back he’s the greatest we’ve ever seen, going back as far as even prior to winning in ‘11. I thought he was the greatest goalkeeper we’ve ever seen.
“We keep judging him on the couple of blips he has but by his standards, he’s almost flawless. He’s a phenomenal GAA guy so we’re lucky to have had him.”