Patience a virtue as O’Halloran content to play waiting game

THE LOT of a reserve goalkeeper can often be a lonely one.

With chances to play usually restricted to injuries or loss of form on the part of the first choice, there can be plenty of heel-kicking done on the bench.

That has been the case for Cork pair Ken O’Halloran and Paddy O’Shea as Alan Quirke has been the dominant custodian on Leeside in recent seasons.

O’Shea has made just three championship appearances, all in 2007 when Quirke was out injured, while Bishopstown’s O’Halloran is still waiting to make his summer bow.

As with 2010, however, Quirke has been absent thus far in this year’s league, with the two rotated. O’Halloran played against Kerry and Sunday against Monaghan, and is aware of impressing when given the opportunity to do so.

“It’s the same with everyone,” he says.

“There’s big competition for places within the panel, when you get your chance you have to try and take it.

“There are new lads coming in all over the pitch and it’s about keeping pressure on the more established fellas. I think that there are a lot of players out there doing that at the moment.”

While O’Halloran’s two games have resulted in wins, he knows that the quality of his competitors means that the competition will remain tough, with O’Shea also being given his chance.

“It’s going to be to and fro all the way to the end of the league,” he says.

“We’ll see how we’re fixed then. There are two other excellent goalkeepers there so the competition will be tough all through the spring.”

To the outsider, O’Halloran and O’Shea might only be vying for the number 16 shirt, and while there it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that one of the two will be the starting championship goalkeeper even with Quirke back, O’Halloran is just focusing on the present.

“We’ll only cross that bridge when we come to it,” he says.

“Right now, I’m just concentrating on every game and trying to do well when I go get a chance.

“I wouldn’t be looking that far ahead at the moment.”

With two wins from three and third place in the table, Cork are in a fairly good position right now following the victory over Monaghan, even if the result was better than the performance.

“It’s good to get the win, because there’s never much in these national league games,” O’Halloran says.

“Monaghan are a very good team and we played okay, I think we could have played a little bit better.

“We probably could have finished with a bit more but their goalkeeper made some very good saves, in fairness to him.

“They were always in the game, we knew that, and that’s what we were expecting when they came down here.”