Goalkeepers tend to get a raw deal when it comes to individual accolades.
They’re judged in their own category, they’re kept separated from the rest of the field and it means that, too often, they’re overlooked. Even when it comes to someone like Stephen Cluxton.
Stephen Cluxton is so much more than just the best goalkeeper in Ireland but that’s all you ever hear: we talk non-stop about how he has redefined the position, he’s led the way for number ones, his kickouts and whatever else. Nobody has a bother making a statement like he’ll go down as one of the finest ‘keepers in history but what about his place amongst the greatest footballers?
All you have to do is look – just look, for God’s sake – at the players Dublin have been operating without on a regular basis.
Imagine any other county coping with their equivalent of Diarmuid Connolly going missing. Imagine them doing it like it doesn’t even matter.
Imagine Michael Darragh MacAuley being kept out of any other side. Bernard Brogan warming the bench.
Philly McMahon only returned on Sunday – you’d have hardly noticed he was gone.
Johnny Cooper didn’t play the Leinster final – how many cared or even realised?
Jack McCaffrey pissed off for a full season and it was grand. It was seamless. They still won the All-Ireland.
Rory O’Carroll leaving was supposed to be a disaster – there’s simply no place for him now.
And where the hell is Paul Flynn?
We’re not talking about duds here – we’re discussing the best players in the country and the frightening reality that Dublin could lose any of them tomorrow and not even think twice about it. We’re talking about All-Stars, every one of them, two Footballer of the Years and a spine that would win any county an All-Ireland next season if they were sent there.
To Dublin, they’re all replaceable – even players of this ridiculous magnitude. They can disband two players voted as the best in the country and carry on as normal and they can lose the best half forward on the island to a 12-week suspension and it just does not matter.
There’s only one player they couldn’t go without though and that is saying something when you consider the names they wouldn’t even bat an eyelid at losing.
Stephen Cluxton is the only player right now who, if you took him out of the team, Dublin would be in trouble – or they’d at least feel the loss for once.
He’s the one man whose absence would be feared because, without him, you lose your cast-iron guarantee of primary possession and you lose the real leader of the pack.
His evolution as a goalkeeper – no, as a footballer – has been incredible.
When he started out in the Dublin camp – 16 years ago now – he was known as this brilliant shot-stopper. People talked up his reflexes and agility like something we hadn’t seen before and his experience in soccer was used to verify that.
Then he started becoming more accomplished in the air, one by one he proved his doubters wrong when they said he was too small for football.
He went and won an International Rules medal.
Then, of course, he kicked the game-winning free kick in an All-Ireland final against Kerry to lead Dublin to their first title in 15 years. It wasn’t just a pressure kick, it wasn’t just a history-changing set piece, it was a damn difficult one too from distance with an angle but he nailed it straight between the posts like the occasion and the task was nothing.
But to sum up how truly great this man has been as a footballer, he’s not even remembered and won’t be remembered for that one kick. Those 2011 heroics should’ve defined Cluxton and put him down as one of the best anyway but he’s done so much since then that that moment is merely an afterthought now. Winning the All-Ireland for his county with a kick like that is an afterthought – that’s how good Stephen Cluxton is.
When teams go to play Dublin now, they try to bring tactics that will counteract the goalkeeper and they still fail every time. Kerry thought they had him rattled for 10 minutes but he recovered brilliantly and expertly and produced a stunning second half with two game-saving kickouts in the latter stages and he had two spectacular finals to follow too.
He copes with pressure, he copes with being targetted, he copes with being the one man who Dublin can ill-afford to lose because he holds everything together for them.
He’s become one of the most accomplished goalkeepers of all time but his effect has been so grand and so constant that he has definitely marked himself out as the most important player of a generation.
And there’s a genuine claim to be made that he should go down as one of the greatest footballers ever – not just the best goalkeeper.
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