Christy O'Connor Talking Points: The GAA's rarest rivalry — one parish, two No 1s
Galway keeper Eamonn McGrath under pressure from Kerry's Joe O'Connor and Sean O'Shea. Pic: Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile
From the late 1950s until 1972, there were two hurling clubs in the Thomastown parish in Kilkenny – Thomastown and Thomastown Rangers. The Rangers club drew mainly from the southern and western sides of the parish, but the creation of the club was born out of a 32-point hammering suffered by Thomastown against Bennettsbridge in the 1955 senior championship.
Many in the club felt they should revert to Junior. Others strongly objected. A vote was taken but a schism had already taken hold. The Rangers were founded in 1956. Their best player was goalkeeper Ray McEntee. He would have been Kilkenny’s first choice goalkeeper only for the excellence of Ollie Walsh – who played for Thomastown.
During the 1963 Leinster championship and the 1964 All-Ireland series, McEntee was understudy to Walsh. It was unique to have two goalkeepers from the one area operating at that level with the county at the same time, but there can only ever be one No 1 jersey. And nobody knows that better than the Collins brothers from Ballinhassig.
In the club’s proud history, six players from Ballinhassig have been involved in All-Ireland senior hurling finals: Martin Coleman Sr, Martin Coleman Jr, Patrick Collins, Ger Collins, Seán McCarthy and Fr Con Contrell. Four of those six are goalkeepers. And two of those four were on the same Cork squad in the same All-Ireland final.
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Ger Collins was back-up to his older brother Patrick for the 2021 final against Limerick. Having two goalkeepers from one club, never mind the one family, is a rare occurrence at inter-county level but it’s not surprising considering the tradition in Ballinhassig – and in the Collins family.
Pa and Ger’s father, Pat, served as Martin Coleman’s deputy through the 1970s. Their older brother, Matt, played minor, U21 and Intermediate for Cork. When Ballinhassig beat Ballincollig in last year’s Premier Intermediate county final, Ger Collins gave a masterclass when scoring 1-11. He is an excellent forward but there’s no point in Ger Collins trying to showcase his goalkeeping skills for Ballinhassig when his older brother is the Cork number 1.
It is extremely rare to have two inter-county senior goalkeepers from the same club but that was the case for Galway in Tralee on Saturday evening. Claregalway’s Conor Flaherty was listed to start but his place went to his clubmate Eamonn McGrath, who was making his league debut.
Flaherty has always been a really flexible player, in both codes – for Claregalway and Carnmore – but that flexibility for Claregalway increased last year with the arrival of McGrath. Flaherty has always generally played outfield for Claregalway but he was the goalkeeper for the 2024 county championship. Yet the emergence of McGrath – U20 keeper when Galway reached the 2024 Connacht final – has allowed Flaherty the licence to focus more on scoring than shot-stopping at club level.
Flaherty has always been comfortable anyway in various different roles. The night before he kept a clean sheet for Galway in their 2020 All-Ireland U20 final win against Dublin, Flaherty lined out at centre-back for the U20 hurlers in their Leinster semi-final victory against Kilkenny.
UL completed a magnificent Fitzgibbon-Sigerson double last week but Flaherty almost managed it himself in 2022, lining out corner-back for the hurlers in their dramatic late win against NUIG, just three days after he was goalkeeper on the side that agonisingly lost the Sigerson final to NUIG by three points.
Flaherty has always been well used to scrapping for inches everywhere to get him to where his talent and ambition has taken him, especially when he’s had to continually battle with Connor Gleeson for the Galway number 1 jersey for last few years. And now there is someone else in that equation too – Flaherty’s clubmate.
Forty-five minutes into Sunday's Donegal-Mayo game in Letterkenny, just after Mayo had won a long Donegal kickout, the ball was immediately kicked long into Ryan O’Donoghue, who was the closest outfield player to the goal. He was still outside the D, but Donegal’s four defenders inside the ’45 were scrambling back to cut off O’Donoghue.
Two of them had reached O’Donoghue as he approached the 13-metre line but he still got off the shot, which Gavin Mulreany saved. To make it worse for Mayo, Conor O’Donnell scored Donegal’s goal off the turnover.
After kicking the ball so often in their opening two games – and to such productive effect – Mayo only kicked the ball into their forwards on two occasions in the second half. The conditions were tricky, the pitch was slow but Mayo had to run the ball when Donegal were able to get so many bodies behind the ball in a low block. The space and kicking opportunities just weren’t there and Mayo were gobbled up in Donegal’s web.
When the space was there in the first half against the breeze, Mayo’s kicking game wasn’t good enough, but neither was their movement. They only won five of 12 kicked balls into their forwards and translated that possession into just one point. To make it worse – again – Donegal scored 0-4 off that possession that Mayo lost.
In summary, Mayo only scored 0-2 off long to mid-range kicks into their attack. The weather, pitch and Donegal’s style has to be taken into consideration. It will be a different game come the championship, but this was still a reality check for Mayo’s kicking game against a seasoned and experienced team.
A goal into Hill 16 for the Dubs is always a special moment but Joe Quigley’s top-corner screamer on Saturday night raised the decibel levels through the roof for obvious reasons – because Dublin were never more desperate for a goal. And for two league points.
Quigley’s goal was sourced from Dublin turning Monaghan over in possession in the middle of the pitch. The intensity, timing and execution of Dublin’s tackling was decisive in the fourth quarter when they hunted Monaghan down and heavily punished them on the scoreboard through that possession, sourcing 1-5 off turnovers in the last 20 minutes.
Dublin outscored Monaghan by 1-5 to 0-1 in the last ten minutes to register a first league win, but they won’t be getting carried away after this result. Dublin are still in the relegation zone. They only beat the team below them. Monaghan’s conversion rate was just 41 per cent. The Ulster side missed six goal chances. Dublin’s conversion rate wasn’t a whole lot better at 47 per cent. They missed nine of their first 12 shots. The Dubs dropped nine shots short over the 70 minutes, but their accuracy was on the money when they needed it to be.
Nobody reflected the wild oscillation of their shooting more than Con O’Callaghan, who – as you’d expect – was the key figure when Dublin really wanted him to step up. After missing his first four shots from play, O’Callaghan nailed three of his last four attempts, two of which were outstanding 2 pointers.
The weather conditions and tricky breeze mitigated against accuracy but the overall standard and execution levels were way off where they needed to be – for both sides. There were 45 turnovers in total, a lot of which were unforced errors or mistakes. Dublin turned over the ball 17 times in the first 40 minutes, but they finally found a groove in the last quarter.
For now, they’ll take whatever positives are going – especially when they’ve been desperately searching for something to really get them going again.
