Striking gold: How Diarmaid Byrnes is ripping up the record books

'He’s a brilliant striker. He has become an absolute weapon for Limerick.'

Fri, 15 Jul, 2022 - 06:15

Christy O’Connor

Limerick were in control but the match was still alive in the 74th minute of the All-Ireland semi-final before David Reidy was fouled inside his own 65-metre line. John Kiely shook his fist in that moment. He knew Limerick couldn’t be beaten in normal time. Because Diarmaid Byrnes was standing over the free.

Byrnes nailed it, his sixth point of the match. It was another phenomenal strike from distance but it was also a reminder of how important Byrnes’ contribution had been to the victory, especially in the third quarter when Limerick were bailing heavy water and Byrnes’ metronomic accuracy was keeping the ship afloat, and on course.

Galway had wiped out a four-point half-time deficit within two minutes of the second half before going ahead shortly afterwards. Limerick hadn’t scored in the opening 11 minutes before Byrnes got the scoreboard moving. He nailed Limerick’s next score when booming over another long-range free. Conor Whelan and Tom Morrissey traded scores before Byrnes landed another free in the 55th minute to squeeze Limerick back in front. When Galway replied with the next two scores, it was Byrnes who levelled up the match again in the 61st minute.

Limerick finally rediscovered their attacking mojo when outscoring Galway by 0-6 to 0-3 afterwards but breaking down that scoring sequence for most of the second half again reaffirmed just how much of a crucial component Byrnes is in ensuring the machine keeps raging at the pace and power it does.

It was almost fitting that Byrnes closed out the scoring. The pattern of his contribution was also broadly similar to how Byrnes had his hands on the controls throughout the Cork and Waterford games in April, when Limerick were also struggling for scores early in those matches and Byrnes kept the digits turning.

When Limerick trailed Cork by 1-2 to 0-0, Byrnes nailed three points from four shots in the space of just three minutes. Limerick had taken full control of the match by half-time but when Cork staged a mini revival with four unanswered points, Byrnes landed an excellent point from play, Limerick’s first score of the second half. Then the Patrickswell man immediately trumped that score with another mammoth point from play from even further back.

Six days later in the Gaelic Grounds when Waterford were on top early on, Byrnes fired over four points in-a-row, against the wind, which included one towering effort from play. Just as he had a week earlier against Cork, Byrnes also slotted the final score of the match in injury-time.

That’s been another obvious pattern. When Limerick trailed Clare by one point in the dying moments of their round robin game in Ennis, Byrnes cooly iced the placed ball from distance to preserve Limerick’s three-year unbeaten run in the province. His last point against Galway was the fourth time in six matches that Byrnes has had the final say.

“He’s a brilliant striker,” says Seánie McMahon, the former Clare player. “He has become an absolute weapon for Limerick.” When McMahon retired in 2006, he had earned the right to rate in the pantheon of great centre-backs with John Keane, Tony Wall, Mick Roche and Ger Henderson. What separated McMahon from everyone else though, was his scoring ability. No other centre-back in the history of the game was able to contribute on the scoreboard like he was. Ninety-eight points in 51 championship games made him a scoring phenomenon for a defender.

On his retirement, McMahon was only two points short of 100 white flags, a feat of which – at that time - only 25 other hurlers could boast, none of whom were defenders for their entire career.

McMahon’s seven points haul against Galway in the 1999 drawn All-Ireland quarter-final and his six-point tally in the 2002 All-Ireland final against Kilkenny would have rated with any of the great individual scoring contributions in the history of hurling.

That was a different time. The game is unrecognisable from that period now. Scoring totals have gone through the roof in recent seasons but, what was considered rare and unique for McMahon two decades ago, has become regular and the norm for Byrnes now.

In Limerick’s final Munster round robin game against Clare in May, Byrnes chalked up 0-9. By the close of business that evening, Byrnes had moved up to fifth in the top scorers list in Munster, edging past Patrick Horgan by one point.

Byrnes huge haul in Ennis wasn’t aided by the decision not to play Aaron Gillane either because David Reidy was on the close-in frees for Limerick that afternoon. Byrnes has become such a reliable source of scores from placed balls that he has nearly assumed the role of Limerick’s clutch freetaker, especially from distance. “It’s unusual when he misses,” says McMahon.

Byrnes’ scoring output has been superior to anything achieved up to this point of his career. The most Byrnes had accumulated in a single championship season was 1-10 in 2018, across eight games. In just six games so far in 2022, Byrnes has more than doubled that tally with 0-31.

Prior to this year, Byrnes had only once recorded more than three points in a championship match, which was a four point-haul in the 2021 Munster final against Tipperary. Yet Byrnes has hit 0-6 or more in four of Limerick’s six games in this championship.

“He’s so confident now that, anything within 80 or 90 yards, Diarmaid is convinced he’s going to score,” says PJ O’Grady, who coached and managed Byrnes at all levels with Patrickswell. “He has missed a few but it doesn’t knock anything out of him. He’s a mighty fella.”

As an underage player with the club, Byrnes was a standout player. He was always the main freetaker out of their defence, but he never hinted at becoming the lethal scoring weapon he has developed into.

“He was accurate but, even ‘65s, you might not be giving him that job,” says O’Grady. “He just worked really hard on that part of his game, but he has worked so hard at every aspect of his play. Diarmaid was always a lovely fella to deal with, a gentleman. He always listened. His mindset is on a different level now. He’s more composed and more confident in himself, which is a huge factor at inter-county level.”

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After winning successive All-Stars, Byrnes is now the front-runner for Hurler-of-the-Year. If he was to scoop that award, Byrnes would just become the sixth defender, alongside Tommy Walsh, Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, JJ Delaney, Brian Corcoran, Brian Lohan, to win it since 1995.

Lohan won the award that year but McMahon was voted Texaco Hurler-of-the-Year the same season.

In 72 league and championship appearances, Byrnes has now amassed a colossal 2-159. Prior to this season, Byrnes’ combined highest season total was 0-31, amassed across 13 games in 2019. Yet he has already bagged 0-46 in 11 games to date in 2022. And counting.

He is a freetaking machine but Byrnes has also scored 1-28 from play, which is an average of 0-1 per match. In the early stages of his career, Byrnes was more prone to low-percentage shooting but he has refined his striking style, which is also evident in his freetaking technique.

He doesn’t line-drive the ball with the same arrowed trajectory as TJ Reid, but that style governs his execution.

“He’s not hitting the ball as high as he used to,” says O’Grady. “You can even see that in his deliveries.”

Limerick thrive on pattern recognition within their system, particularly in how they build the play through their platform in the middle third before playing that long ball into Aaron Gillane or Seamus Flanagan either side of the D. And Byrnes’s deliveries are a central component of that style.

“His striking is unreal,” says O’Grady. “He was always a tall fella but his play is faster now too. He used to get blocked down because he had a big long strike but he is more off the wrists now, especially from open play. You never see him blocked or hooked anymore. Of all the fellas on the team, he has made some progress.”

With 1-78 scored from 31 championship appearances, and still only 28, Byrnes is now within 18 points of surpassing McMahon as the highest scoring defender in the game’s history.

According to the esteemed GAA statistician Leo McGough, the only defender anywhere close to McMahon and Byrnes is Pat Delaney from Offaly. He hit 3-46 in 36 championship appearances, 2-10 from play, with those two goals coming in a game Delaney started at centre-forward. The late great Tony Keady was another renowned scoring defender but he bagged 0-16 in 16 championship appearances for Galway.

Byrnes’s scoring rate has gone to a whole new level this year but it has also incrementally risen in tandem with his importance to this team. Byrnes made his debut under TJ Ryan in 2016 but he missed the 2017 season with a knee injury. Apart from the round robin game match against Waterford in 2019, Byrnes has started every one of Limerick’s championship games in the last five seasons.

Byrnes has become a clutch figure. His numbers in this championship have been off the charts. The data from ‘GAA Insights’ show that Byrnes has nailed 25 points from 33 shots. Noel McGrath scored 25 of 26 placed balls in the championship but on the table for ‘score over expected points’, Byrnes is ranked the overall number one freetaker in the country because of his conversion rate from long range.

“Even when Byrnes is standing over a free on his own ’45, it’s on, he’s expecting to score,” says McMahon. “No matter the distance, you’re thinking, ‘This is a point’.

“You can say that the ball is different now, that the scoring range is far different, but he’s very consistent. As freetakers go, he has a very high percentage, especially for a distance freetaker.”

Most of the top freetakers will come back the field now to hit frees, even from inside their own ’45. Yet Limerick don’t need to bring out Gillane when his club-mate is firing rockets over the bar from all over the field.

On the top 20 list of freetakers during the 2022 championship (who have taken a minimum of 10 frees), there are two goalkeepers – Enda Rowland (Laois) and Mark Fanning (Wexford). But Byrnes is the only defender.

And he’s number one.