Christy O'Connor: More than numbers stack TJ Reid among greatest ever
TJ Reid of Kilkenny during the parade before the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship semi-final match between Kilkenny and Tipperary at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
On The Sunday Game the night after Kilkenny beat Clare in the 2022 All-Ireland semi-final, discussion turned to TJ Reid’s contribution in Kilkenny’s dominant victory.
The best player on the pitch that afternoon, Reid had another four years of his inter-county career still to run, but had already occupied a place in public consciousness reached by a line of great players stretching back to Christy Ring and beyond.
So many brilliant players achieved greatness long before their careers finished. And Reid had already entered the elite sphere long before his career had even come close to winding up.
“He’s a player for the ages,” said Donál Óg Cusack that night. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better player than TJ Reid.”
After announcing his retirement from Kilkenny last Friday, Reid enters the pantheon now as one of the greatest. The highest scorer in hurling history is testimony to that status but numbers alone could never do full justice to Reid’s brilliance.
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In different circumstances, Reid’s stats could have been in an even higher stratosphere. He wasn’t a regular starter for the first six years of his career. Reid was injured for most of 2013. He only assumed the primary free-taking duties in 2014, which was, by then, the eighth season of his career with Kilkenny.
The unrelenting desire and passion that Reid continued to show throughout the latter part of his career was shaped and moulded from the long, hard road of the early days.
By the time Henry Shefflin retired in early 2015, Reid had already been anointed as the leader of the attack. As more and more great Kilkenny players departed the stage, Reid picked up the mantle of responsibility, fully understanding the imperative at hand. In the flux, Kilkenny needed Reid to be more constant, even better, than ever. And he was.
For years Reid was just one of a glittering cast of outstanding forwards but the proportional needs of the players around him vastly changed compared to his early days.
Reid continually accentuated his brilliance by taking his scoring standards to a whole new level, but he also became Kilkenny’s go-to guy as a ball-winner and leader. His incredible capacity to win possession, especially in the air turned Reid into an assists-machine.
“TJ is the best fielder of the ball I’ve ever seen,” said Henry Shefflin in 2019. “I can’t remember a better forward in the air. I think that is his greatest skill. When Kilkenny have been under pressure in big games, the first thought of any defender is almost ‘Where’s TJ so I can put it straight down on top of him’. If he doesn’t win it, nobody else will.”
Great players will always belong to the future as much as the past but Reid’s scoring records are at such a level that it’s hard to see anyone getting close to those numbers anytime soon – if ever.
Of the current players in the top 10 list of all-time highest championship scorers, Reid is 359 points ahead of Lee Chin, 377 in front of Tony Kelly, while he has scored 406 points more than Aaron Gillane, as well as clocking 439 more than Donal Burke.
His numbers are outlandish in every shape and form; Reid scored from play in 80 per cent of his championship matches; his total score in league and championship for Kilkenny, combined with his championship haul for Ballyhale amounts to a staggering 89 – 1,497 (1,764) in 237 matches.
If Kilkenny had managed to qualify from Leinster this year, Reid would have been the first hurler to play 100 championship matches (he finished on 99 appearances). However, Reid’s exorbitant numbers are not just parcelled into the inter-county game either; no other player in Kilkenny has more county medals.
No other club in Kilkenny has more county titles than Reid (13). Colin Fennelly and Oisin McConville also won six All-Ireland club medals on the field of play but, now that Ballyhale are on the march again, Reid is chasing a seventh All-Ireland club title.
The claim Cusack made over four years ago is hard to argue with. Because Cusack certainly isn’t the only one not to have seen a better player than TJ Reid.
In the opening game of the Clare SHC in late July, on a Friday evening in Cusack Park, Inagh-Kilnamona began their campaign with the look of a side that meant serious business. As well as whacking Ballyea by ten points, Inagh-Kilnamona clocked 0-29 in a slick and dominant performance.
After beating St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield by 13 points two weeks later, Inagh-Kilnamona were the only one of 16 teams to have qualified for the quarter-finals before the last round. They didn’t need to win that game but, after trailing Clonlara by 11 points in the first half, IK made sure they didn’t lose it either when drawing the match.
As IK won a first Clare championship, their numbers were consistently impressive; they averaged 0-25 and only conceded 0-18; Eire Og scored two goals in the semi-final but IK only shipped two green flags in their other five games.
That consistency was smeared all over Sunday’s performance against Glen Rovers as IK again more or less hit their average numbers, scoring 1-21 (24) and only conceding 1-14 (17) to match their season average-winning margin of 0-7.
And they made sure that they did by impressively hitting their usual numbers. Again.
With fireworks lighting up the Newry night-sky throughout the Clonfuff-Edendork Ulster championship match in Pairc Esler on Saturday evening, the Edendork pyrotechnics continued to leave their own vapour-trail of smoke across the horizon by recording a first provincial win just eight days after the Tyrone side secured a maiden senior county championship.
Edendork’s marquee players – Niall Morgan, Darren McCurry and Conn Kilpatrick – were again outstanding, with McCurry leading the charge with a haul of 0-8, 0-6 from play, from just seven shots, which has now taken his championship scoring total to 1-37 in six games.
The physical and mental toll of having to play a third big game in just 13 days, combined with the manic celebrations, did show in the first half when Edendork turned over the ball 12 times and were pinged for three breaches. And yet, they still dominated that opening half, especially the Clonduff kickout, with the Down side only managing to win three of their own 11 restarts in that period.
Edendork were far more measured and efficient with their attacks in that opening half while they continued to control the game on kickouts. Clonduff had reduced the margin to two points in the second half when Edendork stepped on the gas with five points (one two-pointer) in just three minutes, with the majority of that pressure having come from the heat of Edendork’s kickout press. When Clonduff pared the margin back to four in the 57th minute, McCurry landed another excellent point straight off another clutch Morgan kickout.
The control Edendork showed was even more impressive again considering they were without Neil Kilpatrick, Jake Fergusson got injured in the warm-up while Ben Cullen went off with a knee injury in the 40th minute.
Still, Edendork continued to just light the place up like the fireworks going off all around them.
