Little did that taxi driver know.
Brendan Cummins had a tough Championship debut for Tipperary in 1995. 19 years and numerous fallen challengers later, he retired from Tipperary in 2013 as one of the greatest hurling goalkeepers to have ever picked up a hurl.
The moral of the story – A goalkeeper who has earned his chance deserves patience. At the very least.
“When I went into the goals first for Tipperary, in my first championship match I was an absolute disaster against Waterford,” said Cummins at a recent AIB GAA event.
“It was car-crash stuff. Balls under my legs, fell over, wearing track-suit bottoms, it was just horrific stuff,” added the Premier County legend.
And many goalkeepers will relate. Drop one ball, take one backward step, take an eye off another. – Bang; back of the net.
That’s when it starts. Questions are asked, doubts are raised. A defender might have been scandalised on the way in, but the buck always stop with the number one.
Cummins had his doubters after that 1995 Sunday.
Who would want to be a goalkeeper?
One Tipperary taxi-driver would’ve put any man off it.
“I remember I was in a taxi going up to football training afterwards with Tipp and the conversation was about the hurling game the day before,” recalled Cummins.
“PJ Savage was a selector at the time and he said to the Taxi-man, ‘What did you think of the game yesterday?’ And the Taxi-man said, ‘Tipp are going to win an All-Ireland but they’ll have to get rid of that goalie first to do it,'” he said.
Second chances are few and far between. It’s a tough reality.
It shouldn’t be. Goalkeeping is all about confidence. A goalkeeper can’t possibly have confidence without experience. A goalkeeper can’t have experience without mistakes.
Don’t expect miracles at the first time of asking. Don’t expect them to stop everything and not drop a ball in their first game. Even Cummins still makes mistakes.
“So, patience is going to be key for goalkeepers. The goalie who plays for Tipperary next year is going to make mistakes the same way that I’m going to make mistakes in my last year playing after 20 years of experience,” he added.
Darren Gleeson was Cummins’ replacement in Tipperary. He retired after this year’s semi-final loss to Galway. Cummins has urged the famously impatient Tipperary public to be patient with the county’s next net-minder. It might just be the making of them.
“I’ll tell you, it’s up in the air now. The three lads in there (Brian Hogan, Darragh Mooney & Paul Maher) will be going at it hammer and tongs.
“That’s just what happens. But it’s important we don’t jump on him. And if they get changed, if whatever goalie who starts the League is swapped out after two games, it’s not a case they’re not good, it’s just someone else’s opportunity,” he added.
“And whoever is put in for the first round of the championship, we have to make sure that no matter what happens them we have to make sure we’re behind them.
“And I think there’s a little bit of the ‘ooh’ and the ‘aah’, or ‘why aren’t they like Darren Gleeson, why aren’t they like Brendan Cummins or Ken Hogan,” he said.
Cummins needed patience. Darren Gleeson needed patience. The next Tipperary ‘keeper will need patience. They all need patience.
“It takes a year or two to actually get comfortable in the position. Look at Darren Gleeson, in his first six months with Tipp after I left he was going very poorly. But he won an All-Star at the end of the year. It just takes a little while to get comfortable with it, but once you do you’re away for slates,” he added.
Any goalkeeper who gets a chance to play for their county has obviously shown well for their club. They might take a while to get used to their new surroundings.
“People stuck with Darren because they knew what he was capable of so I think we need to stick with whatever goalie gets the nod this year and get behind them because they will need our support because it’s a tough gig.
Pressure is part of the job. There’s way more of it with a county team than with a club. Let them get used to it.
“Yeah, it is, absolutely. And the games are going to come thick and fast which is a help. Because if you’ve a bad game or a rocky game on the Sunday, then you’ve another the next Sunday to look forward to.
“That can be a good thing or a bad thing, but for me it’s a good thing because if you do need time to recover there’s nothing like getting into another game again. There’s nothing worse than three weeks or a month of waiting,” he added.
That’s how sport is. It’s all about the present, the now. That’s why the League is an ideal opportunity to blood a new goalkeeper. They make a mistake one day, let them out again to right that wrong.
“Because what happens is the public start to talk about your position. They start to say how bad you were, they dissect every move you made during that game.
“Whereas now by the time you get to Tuesday all eyes will be on the next match. So you can focus yourself and the public is already thinking about what’s going to happen the next day so that gives you a fresh start.
After a few chances, that’s when you know.
“But, yeah, there’s a responsibility on whoever gets the nod to make sure they’re doing all they can and making sure that obviously they’re up for the job because it’s vital,” he concluded.
Ballybacon-Grange’s Brendan Cummins ahead of the AIB GAA Munster Junior Hurling Club Championship Final on Sunday, December 3rd.
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