Mason’s street-smarts learned in the Ballyhale air

Niall McIntyre

Dean Mason could shoot the breeze with the best of them.

He sits down for one of his first ever interviews but it’s like he’s been doing them for years. The questions rain in but there’s none too difficult for a man who, at 21 years of age, has an answer for everything.

You’d know he was a goalkeeper.

Call it cuteness, call it street-smarts but after a quick chat, it’s very easy to see how, when he was still just a teenager, Henry Shefflin deemed him good enough to mind the Ballyhale nets for a campaign that went all the way to Croke Park for the All-Ireland final.

Mason had no troubles on Jones’ Road. He’s had little trouble since.

“I remember when I was U14,” the UL student says, “lads were struggling to sleep the night before and then one of the selectors told us to play the game, not the occasion.

“I always think of that, the game is still the same. It’s still the same things you trained all year for. Don’t change and don’t do anything different. That’s what I do the whole time.”

It was a fair vote of confidence from Shefflin but Mason had given him reason to believe. Having been asked his aims for the year, Mason looked Shefflin in the eyes and told him he wanted to be the Ballyhale goalkeeper.

“At the start of the year (in 2017), Henry pulled us all into the dressing room, one by one, and asked us our aims and I said ‘I want to start senior championship.’

“He said, at the minute, you need to put in the work and you need to learn and adjust to the game. It’s not like a minor match or even like a minor or U20 match with Kilkenny. It’s completely different again. We’ll let you know how you’re going, we’ll keep giving you feedback and we’ll help you every step of the way.”

What a vital save by Dean Mason at the end for @KilkennyCLG ! pic.twitter.com/AipwNIYfMr

— The GAA (@officialgaa) July 4, 2019

He admits that the step-up was difficult at first but in a place like Ballyhale there’s advice and there’s good advice in every corner.

“TJ was there and he said talk to me about anything. Richie Reid, as well, who used to play in goal for the Shamrocks up until 2015. He was there saying there’s tips there and feedback we can give you. And I said yeah, keep them coming.

“We were lucky enough that Richie O’Neill was in with Henry as well. He’s gone to Galway with Henry now. But he was with us and was a goalkeeping coach as well. I learned massively from Richie.”

“When I first went into the goal and shots would be coming in, you just couldn’t stop them,” he says of facing TJ Reid in training.

“It was about getting used to the pace and power of the ball. As time goes on, you’d try to learn from that. You’ll try to read him better and understand how to position yourself a bit better.”

There are few better men to learn off than TJ and there are few better men mind you than Joey Holden who, as the Shamrocks full back, has a special relationship with his goalkeeper.

“Keeping the communication up is something Joey looks for. He knows that I can see everything around him. So, whether it’s to hold, hold and then go to a man. Joey tries to play a bit on the shoulder of the man. So, he tries to read the play as well and watch his man. You’d always be telling him, Joey go left, right or something like that.”

But maybe it’s just where he’s from. Before making the Ballyhale team, Mason had won All-Ireland medals with St Kieran’s College and he’d stopped shots from some of the best young hurlers in the country.

“I would have been playing one, two or sometimes three years above my own age group in Kieran’s. That would have brought me on a lot, I found. You’re seeing fully grown men at colleges, senior, when you’re only 15 or 16. That would bring you on, the power and pace of them.

“Myself, Eoin (Cody) and Darragh Corcoran are all the same age and we were all in Kierans together. We’d always push each other. Darragh and Eoin would be marking each other in training and Eoin would be scoring goals and you’d be pushing yourself for Darragh to do better, not to give him the chance to score the goal.

“And then the older lads tend to want us to push on, saying that the younger lads should have to drive this. So, we always try to drive that. That’s the way we operate.”

And you’d have to say they haven’t gone too far wrong yet.