Declan Bogue: The most prolific hurler ever, Damian Casey was a rare jewel whose gifts will live on
One of a kind: Damian Casey of Tyrone during the Nickey Rackard Cup Final match between Roscommon and Tyrone at Croke Park in Dublin. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
THE further down the hurling ladder you go, the more laissez-faire teams can become over your personal safety.
As a result, the top players at that level can be subject to all sorts of reducers and tricks to stop them performing. And given the small pool that Ulster hurling swims in, familiarity can breed contempt.
My own cousin is the Fermanagh hurling captain, Ryan Bogue. While playing for Lisbellaw St Patrick’s, Fermanagh and later, St Enda’s in Antrim, he played against the late Damian Casey dozens of times.
In trying to make sense of his loss, he passed the following comment: "Never seen a dirty stroke from him or heard anything come out of his mouth. He genuinely was a gentleman." This, despite being the man to stop at that level. But really, at any level.
Casey was – as devastating as that word is to write – the most prolific hurler ever. He was a rare jewel who just happened to be rooted in a different environment than the one in which his talents would have been fully appreciated.
Tyrone is football country. Nobody would make an apology for that. But in Casey, they had a genuine genius in their county team, one beholden to Eoghan Ruadh in Dungannon.
In a recent profile in this newspaper Casey was asked if he would have liked to have spent some of his career at Liam MacCarthy level. His answer? “Of course you do. There was a couple of years there were there was the idea of a ‘Team Ulster.’ But the way it was being talked about, you wouldn’t have been able to play for Tyrone then. And that wouldn’t have sat well on me. I grew up playing for Dungannon and then going on to play with other lads from different clubs in underage county teams. And obviously now I am in the county set-up for the last ten years, so it wouldn’t have sat well with me, for a Team Ulster to take away from Tyrone.
“To answer the question, yes, I would have loved to have played in the Liam MacCarthy. But I grew up wanting to play for Dungannon and Tyrone all my life.”
In doing so, he broke all records. In the Rackard semi-final win over Donegal, Casey broke the 400 point mark in Championship hurling, over 39 appearances. In league and Championship, his tally was 39 goals and 894 points. He followed it all up with 0-12 in the final against Roscommon.
As incredible as it is, he stands as the most prolific hurler to ever play the game. The leading scorer of senior Championship hurling is Patrick Horgan of Cork with a scoring average of 8.4pts per game, while Casey’s was over 10 points per game.
Having secured the Rackard Cup, the inevitable requests began to see it.
One of these Mondays in the coming weeks, he was going to gather up the plundered silverware — the Nickey Rackard Cup, the Division 3A Cup — and bring them over to Ballygawley Playing Fields.
That’s where our humble and young hurling and camogie club, Cúchulainn An Ghleanna, have weekly youth training sessions. He was coming over to give a bit of a demonstration of free-taking, talk to the youngsters and show off the prizes.
As a role model, it’s hard to imagine many better.
Now, Gaelic Tyrone find themselves again, incredibly, burying a county team captain, a man in his sporting prime.
He was universally seen as a man of good humour and great character. And yet here he was, willing to spend an evening to go over to another club, to give his time talking to children he did not know, for adults he didn’t really know, all to grow the games of hurling and camogie.
More than that, he mentioned how excited he was to do it. What other sporting body has a level of altruism like it?
His final game was his 101st since first making the team in early 2012. He scored 0-12 to beat Roscommon in the final of the Nickey Rackard Cup, which will rank among Tyrone hurling’s greatest accomplishment.
They wouldn’t have gotten there without Casey standing up for the team in January 2021, by publicly questioning the commitment to hurling from the county board as they still hadn’t got a manager at that stage.
Tyrone then went and recruited the impressive Michael McShane, manager of Slaughtneil. Within two years, Casey was lifting a trophy over his head in Croke Park.
His 101st game. Never once dropped for loss of form, or breach of discipline. Never injured either, despite working part of his professional life in the north of England and Scotland.
And never suspended.
His discipline, respect for opponents and respect for the game will be taught forever to the children of Eoghan Ruadh Dungannon, and Cúchulainn An Ghleanna, and really, wherever a hurl is held in the hand.
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