CLARKE IS READY FOR FINAL STOP
Mayo keeper calls time on long career
WITH f our minutes remaining in the 2012 AllI r el and s emifinal, David Clarke showed us one more time why he had no equal as a shot- stopper in the modern game.
Mayo were defending a precarious lead as they were reeled in by a fierce Dublin onslaught with the Westerners’ defensive shape fraying at the edges.
It was inviting trouble. A booming Ciarán Kilkenny kick straight down the middle was swallowed up by Bernard Brogan, leaving Ger Cafferkey flailing at the air and Clarke staring at the game’s most feared inside forward, who had just won back-to-back Allstars and a player- of-the-year gong in t he previous t wo seasons.
There was no natural angle for Clarke to play with so, instead, he fashioned one of his own.
He darted instinctively from his l i ne to shut down Brogan’s options and critically stayed upright until Brogan pulled the trigger. The bullet bounced off the Mayo goalkeeper’s right hand to safety.
Clarke’s best save? Who can honestly say, given the depth of his back catalogue after finally calling time on an inter- county career that can be traced back to 2001 when, as a 17-year- old, he was part of Mayo’s National League winning panel.
His most important? Possibly, but he was still making matchdefining saves right to the end – check out the opening 10 minutes of this year’s semi-final against Tipperary.
But it is the 2012 save, apart from ensuring Mayo’s place in that year’s final, that sums up the
“In terms of shot-stopping, he was superb”
quality that ensured he had no equal when goalkeeping was stripped down to i ts l i teral meaning.
‘In terms of being a shot-stopper, he was absolutely superb,’ reflected former Mayo manager John O’Mahony yesterday.
‘I am not taking anything away from Stephen Cluxton who has such a complete skillset as a goalkeeper, but Clarke’s shot- stopping ability was the best I have ever seen.
‘He had this ability to make himself as big as possible and he was imperious when it came to covering his angles while, on top of all that, he had the reflexes and the agility to execute.
‘The big thing about him was that he never panicked, he always maintained his composure.’
His career statistics back that up. He made 55 in the Championship and kept 26 shut- outs — which is just shy of one every other game.
He was beaten 52 times, conceding just under one a game, but those figure don’t tell the complete story.
For much of his 133-game career, he played behind a defence of exceptional individual talent that refused to erect a covering wall.
As a result, the chance that came Brogan’s way would fall to others, time and again, over the course of Clarke’s career.
It is in that context that his time between the Mayo posts deserves great praise.
His l ongevity i s worthy of acclaim too, even though he did not make his Championship debut until 2005.
What was remarkable, though, throughout his career were the tug-o-wars he waged against the likes of John Healy, Kenneth O’Malley and, latterly, Robbie Hennelly, to be Mayo’s number one.
His battle with Ballina clubmate Healy was the most bizarre. In 2005 when the club won the AllIreland Club SFC title, Clarke was Mayo’s first choice keeper but had to sit on the bench and ultimately would be displaced by Healy on the county side the following season.
He would, at various junctures, also serve as deputy to O’Malley and Hennelly and given the limited — and often non-existent — game-time that afforded to a substitute goalkeeper, his resolve to keep going was quite remarkable.
Of all the career duntings he received, the biggest came in 2016 when after a Championship of sustained brilliance, he was sensationally dropped in favour of Hennelly for the All-Ireland final replay.
It was a decision that would come back and haunt then manager Stephen Rochford.
Despite the fact he won his first All-Star at the age of 33 and followed it up with a second the following season, the fragility of his position as Mayo’s number one remained — he was also dropped last season by manager James Horan.
His perceived vulnerability off the kicking tee hurt him, at times unfairly given that it can be argued that when goalkeepers go long, the onus is on outfield players to win the ball.
He defied that critical focus on his restarts in last month’s AllIreland final, outperforming Cluxton off the kicking tee, much to the delight of O’Mahony, who spent three years as his manager between 2008 and ’10.
‘He had one of the longest kickouts in the game but there were issues about the trajectory of his kicks.
‘He did have games where his kick-outs went astray but I think the one thing people forget when a goalkeeper has to go long with kick-outs is that the focus should be on those out the field, whose job it is to win it and on some of those days when things did go wrong, it was not all his fault.
‘The one thing that impressed me is that even though a lot of that criticism was pubic, he always took it on the chin and bounced back every single time.
‘It was great to see that in what was his final game in Croke Park, he confounded the critics with regards to his kick- outs where Mayo won a huge percentage and had Dublin in trouble for a period in the game.’
At the age of 37, he leaves the game as an eight-time Connacht champion and two-time National League winner, and the sense, especially after his announcement followed that of Donal Vaughan’s, is that we are witnessing the choreographed departure of a large chunk of Mayo’s leadership group.
“He confounded his critics in the final”
‘I think his decision was inevitable and I believe you will see a few more go in the coming weeks,’ admitted O’Mahony.
‘It is sad to see the likes of David and Donal Vaughan, who made his debut under me, leave the stage but they don’t owe anybody anything.
‘It is a pity that they go without that All-Ireland medal but that will not diminish what they have achieved.’