John Fogarty: Shoplifter chase sent Shane Dowling between the goalposts

MINDING THE SHOP: Na Piarsaigh goalkeeper Shane Dowling celebrates after his side's victory in the Limerick County Senior Club Hurling Championship final between Na Piarsaigh and Patrickswell at the TUS Gaelic Grounds in Limerick. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Shane Dowling’s time as an outfield hurler didn’t come to an end on a field but at a shop front.

Forced to retire from the intercounty game three years ago due to an ongoing knee injury, he returned to senior training with Na Piarsaigh 20 months ago intending to stake his claim for a place in the forwards.

“It was a summer’s day in March,” recalls the Centra area manager. “I remember it well because we were going to Dalo’s pub afterwards. It was my first hurling session back as an outfielder in three years and I was like a cow left out to the field for the first time after the winter. I felt great and bit by bit I was training away and played 20 minutes of a game.

“I thought I ran around the place fine and the next day and day after that I was perfect. I was inside in work one day and this fella robbed two bottles of wine and I jogged away out after him and the knee absolutely buckled. It took seven weeks for the swelling to go down. I knew I couldn’t keep doing it. When it eventually settled down, I got a cortisone injection and I gave up on playing outfield.” 

A rare break was to come Dowling’s way that summer when the intermediate goalkeeper berth became vacant. He filled in and was once more part of a county-winning team. Not just that, he was influential, scoring a late 1-2 to see off Feohanagh in an early round game.

Called up by Shane O’Neill to the seniors this year, Dowling has been able to keep out Evan Condon and justified his selection with displays such as his four penalty saves in the semi-final shoot-out against Doon.

But there have been difficulties for the 2018 All-Ireland winner and ’14 All-Star. Keeping focus has been one, staying calm another. 

“I’m not getting the same high (as outfield). I’m actually getting angry in goals and I’m not an angry person. It’s because I’ve time to think whereas out the field you’ve no time.

“Now, I’m seeing stuff and not being directly involved in it, there’s a bit of frustration. I just have to pull myself back a small bit because I’m not out there playing in the moment and not with the time a player in my position now has.

“I’m still getting a buzz. At the early stages, I found myself a bit drawn out. I’d play in goals in an old soccer match and after 90 minutes you’d be bored for a finish. It’s not so much like that in hurling. It’s gas now because you’re not judged on how many goals you concede unless they’re howlers. It’s all puck-outs so there’s a challenge in that in itself and the more you progress in a competition the harder they become to execute.” 

Dowling has two of the greatest goalkeepers in Brendan Cummins and Dónal Óg Cusack for company on The Sunday Game panels. Yet he chose not to pick the brain of either. The only conversation he had with Cusack about the position was after the Cork man heard Dowling hadn’t fared too well in a challenge game against St Finbarr's.

But in Na Piarsaigh’s goalkeeper coach Colm Callanan there is plenty of expertise to call on. It helped that the former Galway netminder and Dowling knew each other from the 2015 All-Stars tour to Austin.

“Colm is some striker of a ball. I don’t know how other goalkeeping coaches work but when you’re standing in goals he doesn’t try and get your confidence up. When Colm takes shots, you’re doing well to save them. He’s a laid-back character. He’s a very good way about him.

“Colm was probably afraid of my injury at the start. I can run around the field and jump around the place. Just as long as I’m not consistently pounding the knee. In the first game against Patrickswell, I made a dive for a save and he was slagging me saying, ‘If I knew you could do that, I would have worked you harder’. 

"From a saving point of view and knowing when to come off the line, I’m far from a complete goalkeeper. I won’t say I can burst off the line because I never had a burst.” 

Of course, he knows incoming forwards will push him onto his weak right side too. “I’ve got plenty of slagging about that over the years. The only benefit I have and it probably stood to me the way the Doon game finished out, I can think as an outfield player whereas not many goalies have played outfield for an extensive period of time.

“The problem with that is you can think too much but when a fella is bearing down on goal and taking aim you’ve a fair idea of where the ball is going to go having been in that scenario yourself.” 

The 30-year-old can report with absolute certainty that the verbals towards goalkeepers from on-field and terrace or bank are just as loud. “If I wasn’t doing The Sunday Game, I wouldn’t have got anything but if I make a mistake or something you’d get, ‘Ah, you think you know it all’.

“It wasn’t anything I wasn’t expecting and at this stage it’s water off a duck’s back. To be fair, there’s no venom, just lads trying to get inside your head as they would further out the field.” 

As the new Limerick minor manager, Dowling will be looking to steel the mentality of the county’s next generation of hurlers. He feels a duty to avoid the mistakes of the past.

“I was there during the times when getting out of Munster was a success. I remember the strike, playing under-age when we weren’t competitive. It’s not all about winning titles at under-age level but you still want to be able to compete.

“The one thing I notice about the current Limerick senior group is bar Cathal O’Neill nobody has broken onto the team really since 2018. William (O’Donoghue) is another but there has been little or no change. I’m very conscious of when that drop comes, and it mightn’t be next year or the year after. Lads mightn’t be old but they will have won a lot and miles on the clock and the next generation will be needed or else there will be a plunge in Limerick again.

“A lot of people in Limerick are trying to ensure that plunge isn’t going to be too severe and we don’t go back to the times when I was starting out. You just want to prepare these young lads for the jump to U20 and senior.” 

Making the leap to goal is made easier by encounters like Sunday’s Munster semi-final. Facing Ballygunner, a team that have turned the tide against Na Piarsaigh since 2018 in a gripping rivalry going back to 2011, the mind won’t wander.

“Television cameras keep you focused. The crowd keeps you focused. Anyone who tells you otherwise is telling a lie but you’re not going to be as focused in round one in Claughaun as you’ll be on Munster semi-final day on live TV against the Munster champions. That was a challenge for me but I will happily admit that was a weakness.

“When I see lads saying this I throw my eyes to heaven and say ‘it’s the same old ding-dong’ but the bookies usually have a fair idea of what’s going on and they have us raging underdogs. We are underdogs and we’re going to throw the shackles off. If we’re in it with 10 minutes to go, it’ll be a fair watch.” 

When Dowling is involved, it usually is.