Netminder Nash finally taking flight

ALL-IRELAND SHC SEMI-FINAL:

Yet ask Cork’s goalkeeper for his recollections and he chooses to tell you about the eight shots that eluded him on the way to his net.

He could have mentioned the save made from a cheeky Joe Canning free, the block he pulled off from Conor Cooney, or the exceptional effort that denied Niall Burke as Galway went for the kill in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final.

Except he didn’t.

“The warm-up was nerve-wracking,” he said. “Darren McCarthy, the other goalkeeper we have, was hitting low bouncing shots just to get used to the surface and, of the 12 he hit, eight of them ended up in the back of the net because the surface is so fast.”

His subsequent performance demonstrated just how quickly he ascended the learning curve but then he was in something of a rush after seven years spent frequenting the replacements’ bench as understudy to Donal Óg Cusack and Nash returns to HQ Sunday as Cork seek to go one better than last year and book a berth in September’s final.

That story about his warm-up 12 months ago doesn’t just provide a link between his first and latest experiences at the association’s showpiece stadium, it also sums up the attitude of a man who is greeting his new-found fame with the same equanimity as was required during his long years of anonymity.

He returns to Jones Road for Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final as the incumbent All-Star custodian — the only man from his county to make the 2012 team — and off the back of a performance against Kilkenny in which his double save from a penalty was met with hanging jaws.

The acclaim earned this last 14 or so months is long overdue given he had, until last summer, spent just shy of a dozen years in the role of unused understudy, whether to Martin Coleman at underage levels or Donal Óg at senior, but he protests against the innocuous notion that he has ‘earned’ the number one jersey.

“It’s strange,” he said at an event to promote the Aer Lingus and Etihad Airways International Hurling Festival which will take place in Galway from September 18-21.

“I’m not trying to be modest or anything but, like, goalkeeping is one game at a time. The next day is what it’s all about. The Kilkenny game will be forgotten about. (After) the Clare game people were patting me on the back but the next day I’d nothing much to do against Limerick.

“We lost the game and I wasn’t getting half the (text) messages. The last day I was getting them again. It doesn’t matter where you play on the field, it’s the next day, that’s all.”

Nash’s modesty never strays anywhere near the vicinity of false in the course of a 30-minute chat.

He just seems to think little of admitting that his puck outs against Kilkenny were “nothing short of terrible” and yet this is a player who has clearly toiled endlessly to reach the heights he has.

He told the story about how, when he was still 16 and struggling to reach the halfway line with his puckouts, his father approached Ger Cunningham for advice and guidance.

Ten years later, he was landing a monstrous free against Galway in that first outing in Dublin 2.

That didn’t just happen.

If hard work was his raw material then patience was the glue that put it all together. Cusack’s injury last season opened the door for Nash and Coleman and, after both had opportunities in the league’s latter stages, it was felt that the man from Kanturk had auditioned the better.

He didn’t want for it to happen that way: for his big chance to come courtesy of an injury to Cusack who has become a good friend but, as he acknowledges, it rarely comes about via any other avenue for those who wear ‘16’ on their backs and he is enjoying the upturn in fortunes.

“There was many a time I sat in the dressing room after games, whether we won or lost, and not felt a huge part of it,” he acknowledged.

“I was third-choice for many a game. Even if Donal Óg Cusack got injured or sent off the chances of me coming on were pretty slim. It nice to be playing for Cork now and I’ll never take it for granted.”

That much you can bet on.