The journey back to Croke Park for Robert Downey

STANDING TALL: Rob Downey might not have started the summer as Cork’s frontline full-back but he’s never taken a backward step since being handed the jersey by Kieran Kingston and the Cork management team. Picture: Tommy Dickson, Inpho

Robert Downey returns to Croke Park tomorrow for his second All-Ireland final appearance at GAA HQ. His first — the minor final of 2017 — saw him wear number 14 on his back. Four years on, the number three shirt he now occupies.

All told, it’s been quite the journey back the field for the 21-year-old, with those who have had a front-row view not the least bit surprised at how well Downey has adapted to his new posting in recent weeks.

To have followed the Cork hurlers this summer is to know that Downey came to the full-back berth far more by accident than design.

The Glen Rovers clubman was an unused substitute during Cork’s Munster semi-final defeat to Limerick, but found himself parachuted into full-back for the subsequent sink-or-swim qualifier against Clare after Damien Cahalane was struck down with appendicitis on the Wednesday before the game and Eoin Cadogan then ruled out through injury a day later.

In their moment of need, management turned to the young half-back.

And not only did Downey succeed in keeping his head above water in the baking heat of LIT Gaelic Grounds, as John Fogarty wrote in the following Monday’s Irish Examiner, he was a close second to Seamus Harnedy for man of the match.

Patrick Collins’ save to deny Tony Kelly was the game’s defining moment, but pivotal too was Downey’s outstanding block from Gary Cooney’s 66th minute effort, at a time when Clare trailed by two.

We’ll come back in a moment to his more testing quarter and semi-final outings. For now, let’s deal with how Downey went from Cork minor full-forward to senior full-back in the space of four years.

Richie Kelleher, who managed Glen Rovers to county senior titles in 2015 and 2016, is adamant that Downey was always a defender, recalling U14 Féile games where the latter lined out at centre-back for the northside club.

It was at Christians where his forward potential was unearthed, the Glen’s Tony Wall and current Cork U20 selector Donal O’Mahony among the teachers to use him as a forward across a number of Harty campaigns. This schools form fed into the decision of then Cork minor manager Denis Ring to play Downey at full-forward for the 2017 campaign.

“The goal he got in the Munster minor final, I don’t think we had got a goal of that nature since Ray Cummins. A long ball came all the way in, he caught the sliotar on the edge of the square, turned and buried it,” says Ring.

“Around that time, I remember hearing from people in the Glen that Robert was the only fella who could take on Hoggy in their ball alleys, which was some compliment. To have that level of skill and technique for such a big guy isn’t very common. It also means he could play anywhere on the field.”

Downey’s forward days came to a head a year later following a conversation with Kelleher.

“Rob was out of minor, so we had him all the time with the club seniors. I said, ‘Rob, where do you want to play’. You know a young fella now and he looked at me and said, ‘Richie, what do you want me to say?’ I told him I knew where I wanted him to play but wanted to hear it from him.

“It was just the two of us around, no one else. He said, ‘I think I am a defender’. ‘I think the exact same,’ I said to him. That was it and off he went.”

An interview Downey gave before the 2019 Munster U20 final — a game he was at half-back for — made clear that defence had always been where his heart lied, pointing to Kilkenny’s JJ Delaney as his hurling role model.

“I got a black helmet because he had one and I got a black wristband for a while because he had one. He was unbelievable in the air, the knack of getting in around you, and he was teak-tough on the ground.”

Coincidence or not, these are the very traits Downey showed in abundance when recovering from difficult opening 35 minutes against Dublin and Kilkenny in recent weeks.

With Dublin full-forward Ronan Hayes having won three of the first four balls sent in their direction, the UCC student didn’t panic and began to assert himself thereafter. Anthony Nash, on duty for Sky, remarked late in the game that “standing behind Rob Downey in the second-half has been an absolute joy to watch”.

His temperament would be tested to a far greater extent in the first half of the semi-final.

Eoin Cody took him for a point in the 10th minute before Billy Ryan twice did the same. There was also a 29th minute foul on Ryan that TJ Reid converted. But again, he pulled from somewhere a colossal second half and extra-time showing that included three crowd-lifting catches and three perfectly timed flicks to knock possession away from Ryan, Adrian Mullen, and Reid.

“If a period of the game doesn’t happen for him, he has the capacity to adapt and adjust. He showed that in the Kilkenny game where he ended up having a stormer in the second half,” says Ring.

“A lot of players can’t do that, can’t find a way to get back into the game. Rob reads the situation, assesses it, minimises the risk, and comes back, whereas some players in that situation fold. I’d have great admiration for that.

“Even as a young fella, he was mature beyond his years, on and off the pitch.

“Having a conversation with him, it was like talking to an oul lad even though he was only 17 and 18.”

With Kelleher remarking that he lives for the game, it is no surprise to hear Ring speak of his willingness to soak up whatever guidance is directed his way.

“I remember asking him before the 2019 All-Ireland U20 final would he do a catching session with Pa Cronin. ‘No problem’, was his reply. He would have taken pointers from that in terms of how to hold off the man. He doesn’t know it all, he’s willing to learn.”

During our respective conversations, both men alluded to a Glen Rovers-Clonlara challenge game in Mallow a couple of years ago where Kelleher sent Downey into full-back to mark John Conlon. And mark him he did. Early evidence of the full-back we’re now all seeing grow.