GAELIC GAMES:. . . and some well -publicised mistakes have been learnt from – Stephen Cluxton is now the complete keeper, writes SEAN MORAN
THE CLUXTON paradoxes: one of the most familiar players in football, he steers clear of the media and little is known about him outside of his presence in the Dublin goalmouth. Despite this preference for privacy he erupted into public view earlier this year for a spat with former Republic of Ireland international Jason McAteer during a charity soccer match.
Acknowledged as an outstanding goalkeeper, a couple of rare but spectacular errors pop up in any discussion of his merits. The best International Rules keeper Ireland have had, his career has been largely restricted because his dislike of air travel prevents his travelling to Australia for the away series.
Although in great demand for commercial and endorsement engagements Cluxton, a science teacher in St Vincent’s, Glasnevin, has always declined the offers.
It’s over 10 years since his debut for Dublin at the age of 19, when he stood in for a couple of matches when David Byrne was injured. A year later he became the county’s first-choice and in June made his 50th championship appearance.
His statistics are impressive. In 52 matches he’s conceded just 31 goals, an average of .58 per game. In the 21 matches in which he was beaten, the concession was kept to one on all but five occasions, with the five-goal shellacking by Meath last year and the three goals scored by Tyrone in 2008 the only occasions on which he has been beaten more than twice.
A soccer background has contributed to an excellent shot-stopping facility but his reputation extends beyond the basic function. His kick-outs and restart strategies have been integral to Dublin’s game in recent years and his reading of the game, developed by experience playing outfield for his club Parnells, has turned him into a seventh defender.
Christy O’Connor, the award-winning author, who wrote a definitive study of hurling goalkeepers Last Man Standing, and whose journalism in the field of GAA statistical analysis is well known, says of Cluxton: “I think he’s the Dónal Óg (Cusack) of football, someone who’s redefined the goalkeeping role. Anyone can take short kick-outs but his tactics are so well known and so many teams are set up to counter them that it takes unbelievable nerve to put a ball into a player’s hand because if he drops it the keeper will get the blame. Still, opponents find it hard to counter him.
“The thing I notice about him most is the absence of fuss. After the Tyrone game last year – which was a big game for him; as well as kick-outs he made a major intervention at the end – there were no histrionics. He shook hands and went off.
“In RTÉ’s documentary about Dublin in 2005, you see in the dressingroom after the Leinster final, which was their first in three years and there’s quite an emotional atmosphere. It’s unusual to hear him interviewed but he came in and said ‘my job is done’. He was just interested in winning the game and no distractions.”
His youthful sports career is interesting. As well as a talent for soccer, which his father played, the young Cluxton was an accomplished badminton player, experience that may have given him enhanced flexibility and reflexes. According to one of his former coaches, “he has a remarkable bend in his back and great dexterity”.
He first played football at school in St David’s, Artane. Former Galway player and Dublin selector Brian Talty is a teacher at the school and a club-mate of Cluxton in Parnell’s. “He started in school as a corner forward and is still keen to get out and play outfield. I prefer to have him in goal because he’s so sharp and quick off the line and he judges the game well. He’s like an extra defender and keeps other backs on their toes.
“But the big thing is he’s so focused in training. When he’s practising, it’s flat out for the 60 minutes doing drills. Shane Curran was like that when I was with Roscommon and everyone thought he was mad but with Stephen, anyone at training would see the hardest-working player on the field is actually the keeper.”
The ability to place kick-outs accurately has become a major weapon for Dublin. This acumen was first recognised in the International Rules series when he was called up for the second Test in 2002. Mayo’s Peter Burke had saved well in the first Test but wasn’t as comfortable with the quick restarts and the imperative to put the ball into a team-mate’s hands for a mark or the need to play as an auxiliary defender.
Later Cluxton would become hugely influential for Dublin in varying his kick-outs between the demands of servicing a top-class primary ball winner, Ciarán Whelan, and his centrefield partner Shane Ryan, who would drift to the wings to take accurately placed deliveries.
“Again that was hard work,” according to Talty. “Stephen came up with that. He’d work on it and say, ‘let’s try this and do that’. That understanding with Shane Ryan didn’t just happen. They worked and worked at it. Teams knew that about the option but struggled to counter it because he timed the kicks so well.”
Ryan remembers the partnership that helped him win an All Star in 2008. “It developed when I was first put to midfield. I’m not even six foot so I had to come up with something different rather than compete in the air with taller players. We practised hard at training and it worked because Stephen’s deliveries are like laser.”
Was he surprised opponents so rarely managed to counter the strategy? “Rarely or never?” He laughs. “I often used to think, ‘someone’s going to come up with a tactic to stop this’ but it never happened. It’s hard for the other player because they don’t know where the kick-out’s going. I knew exactly when to make the run, depending on how many steps Stephen took.”
Under the c’urrent Dublin management the preference has been for shorter kick-outs but on occasion, as in last year’s corresponding match with Tyrone, who themselves went very short to guarantee possession, Cluxton has been given rein to kick out more ambitiously.
Over the past two years he has added long-range place kicking to his responsibilities and the yield has been noticeable: five points in last year’s championship and six to date this season.
“He was always at me in the club,” says Talty, “to let him take the 45s but we’d two very good free-takers. Again it’s an ability he developed himself through hard work. It became obvious because he used to use the posts at training to practise the accuracy of his kick-outs, as a guide-point. The practice paid off.”
The bad times have been sparing but equally have hit venomously. Shortly into the second half in the 2003 All-Ireland qualifier against All-Ireland champions Armagh at Croke Park, Cluxton was engaged in a routine clearance but inexplicably chose to kick Steven McDonnell.
At that stage Dublin were a man up after Paddy McKeever’s sending off but referee Pat McEnaney had no choice but to brandish a second red card and level the playing numbers. Denunciation was swift. “A disgrace – you’d have to question whether this fella should ever be allowed wear a Dublin jersey again,” said pundit Joe Brolly on television. Dublin manager Tommy Lyons said he felt his team would have won but for the dismissal.
Four years later in an All-Ireland semi-final during which Dublin had recovered well and had cut the deficit to one with three minutes left, Cluxton emerged from goal, soloing the ball almost to his 45 before giving away possession to Kieran Donaghy who set up the killer score. There weren’t the same levels of recrimination afterwards but the player was shaken by both episodes.
“He was upset,” says Talty, “but the trouble with goalkeepers is that their mistakes are magnified out of all proportion. Still he took those things on board. It was the same when his kick-out to Declan Lally against Tyrone (2005 All-Ireland quarter-final replay) was intercepted and they got a goal. But he is, as we say in the country, ‘thick enough’ about these things so he just took those things on board and moved on.”
This afternoon it’s Tyrone again in a quarter-final, the fourth (including replay) between the counties in six seasons. Cluxton remains the dynamic for Dublin’s defence, marshalling the backs, orchestrating the restarts and coming up to take 45s.
“His record is outstanding,” says Christy O’Connor. “Remember those statistics were achieved over a period when he wasn’t playing behind a defence like Armagh’s or Tyrone’s in the middle of the last decade.”
Cluxton is heir to a remarkable tradition. Since 1967 Dublin have had just four first-choice goalkeepers.
If the incumbent can keep going another six years – his mid-30s, not an impossible target for a keeper – that would make it four in 50 years, a record you’d have to say looks in safe hands.
Stephen Cluxton ups and downs
2001: Debut for Dublin v Longford
2002: Leinster SFC medallist (and again in 2005-09 and ’11) and called up for Ireland in International Rules series. All Star (and again in 2006 and ’07).
2003: Sent off against Armagh (above) and is criticised by manager Tommy Lyons afterwards when Dublin lose.
2004: Is named Ireland’s player of the series in the International Rules series win.
2007: Loses ball at vital stage of All-Ireland semi-final and Kerry take a point to stall Dublin’s recovery and win narrowly.
2010: Back in the Ireland team for the International Rules Series in Ireland.
2011: Makes 50th championship appearance for Dublin, against Laois and wins sixth Leinster medal.
