Who possesses the hardest shot in hurling?

JOE Canning’s cracking penalty nine days ago in Thurles against Cork set us to considering a basic argument: who has the hardest shot in hurling?

We turned to the men with first-hand experience: the goalkeepers. First we talked to Christy O’Connor, journalist, author of the magnificent ‘Last Man Standing’, about hurling goalies – and a very fine goalkeeper himself with St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield and Clare.

“I always felt Eamonn Taaffe was a super finisher — very clinical, very efficient. If you were in training his shot mightn’t have huge pace, but he could put it somewhere you couldn’t get to it. But for power . . . Eugene Cloonan has a good crack off a ball if he catches it right. And Paul Flynn has a very good shot.”