First, the penalties in hurling were too hard to score. Now, they’re becoming too easy.
In a one-on-one situation from the 21-yard-line, goalkeepers are basically living on a prayer.
They have a little bit longer than a blink of an eye to react to a bullet that’s fired at their goals in the form of a sliotar and they’ve no help at either side of them anymore.
If they’re waiting to see where the striker is going to go, they’d want to have reflexes like no human. Their only hope is to make an educated guess of where the ball is going and try to react from there.
In a brilliant piece about the art of the hurling penalty, Christy O’Connor talked about the pace of the sliotar, the time that leaves the goalkeeper and what is going on between striker and stopper in those split seconds.
The most natural strike for any player is to hit across their body because that’s how they generate the most power and that is also working against goalies because most of them are right-handed and that means the bás of the hurl is at the other side of their body.
In a fascinating debate on The GAA Hour hurling show, Damien Hayes spoke about the common habit of most of the hurlers elected to hit penalties.
“What most penalty-takers will try to do is if you’re facing the ball and you’re striking off the right and the goalkeeper is holding the hurl in his right hand, most people will go to the ‘keeper’s right so he has to get the goalie hurl, get the bás across his body, and that’ll take roughly a second and he has to get down low then.
“If TJ Reid, for example, is striking it, he’ll try to put the ball to the opposite side of the bás of the hurl.
“I’m amazed there’s not a goalkeeper who tries to implement a bit of psychology.
“Imagine the goalkeeper just stood on one side and left all his left hand side of his goals open. Would he strike it to his left hand side or would he strike it at him?”
Listen to the full discussion at the top of the show below.
