Cummins keeping on top of his game

GAA:He may be 36 years old, but the feted Tipperary net-minder feels he is still learning his trade, writes IAN O'RIORDAN

HE DESCRIBES it as the “panda bear” incident, the moment – or rather image – that made Brendan Cummins realise he’d let it slip. If he was serious about extending his career as Tipperary goalkeeper then something had to change, starting with all that soft padding around his waist.

A year earlier, in 2001, he’d helped Tipperary win back the All-Ireland hurling title for the first time in 10 years. At age 26, Cummins also won his second All Star, and earlier that year delivered a man-of-the-match performance in Tipperary’s league final victory over Clare.

So all he had to do was keep doing what he was doing, right? Instead, Tipperary surrendered their Munster title to Waterford and thus began the barren years. Soon, Cummins was wondering if he’d ever make it back to the main stage, but now he has, the lessons of the past continue to inspire.

“It’s something I’ve kept in my own head,” he says. “I remember looking back at the 2002 Munster final, and I was like a panda bear inside in the goals. Totally out of shape, and that’s something I can really recognise now.

“We had, subconsciously I suppose, been happy with what we’d done in 2001. You can talk to other players, but it has to start with yourself as well. Now, I always keep myself physically fit. I know where I need to be every year, every month of every year, and that is to be on par with the year before, and a bit better.

“This year I put a real emphasis on being fitter than I every had been so that when I look at myself years down the road this All-Ireland final, whatever way it goes, I can say I was fit enough for the challenge anyway.

“That’s something I learned from 2002. So I have my own personal goals like that. I do the gym work, same as everyone else. But I find if the mind is driving you the body will do the rest, and that is really the way my career has gone so far.”

And why it has gone on so far, too: now 36, Cummins made his 66th hurling championship appearance for Tipperary in their semi-final win over Dublin, one more than Christy Ring played for Cork, and with it he takes over the all-time record. Not that Cummins is making a big deal of it.

“I have great respect for Christy Ring, for what he has done, but if you think about the amount of qualifiers I played in, while there were no back-door systems around when he was there. If he lost a game in May, he was gone until the following May.

“The way the record is now someone else will come along and break it again, so I don’t think this one is going to last as long as Christy’s. And it is not a patch on what that man has done, to be honest.”

What is important, says Cummins, is maximising Tipperary’s potential. That starts with him still perfecting the art of goalkeeper, while around him, the younger players continuously raise the demands.

“The group of players we have now have won minor and under-21 All-Irelands, yet grown up under the shadow of Kilkenny winning so much. Now they want a piece of the action. They have great enthusiasm, so I don’t need to drive them too much, because they are the ones that are driving me. I also think Kilkenny set the bar, where one All-Ireland is fine but two, three and four in your career is where you want to be.

“I’m still learning too, especially around the puck-out side of my game. You always have to believe that you can be better. I don’t think yet that I am where I want to be, I suppose you always challenge yourself to be the best and reach for perfection, which you are never going to get.”

Amazingly, Cummins has only conceded one goal in his four championships matches this summer – and that’s no accident: he reckons he’s better prepared this year than he’s ever been, all with Sunday’s showdown against Kilkenny in mind.

“You always prepare yourself as well as you did every other year, but this year I think it’s going to take a bigger push to beat Kilkenny. They don’t have that weight of history on their shoulders, like last year. They have a full-strength team, no injuries this year, nothing like that, distractions I suppose they would call them.

“Last year there was something like 12,000 people watching them training. In fairness if Manchester United opened Old Trafford they mightn’t get that many. It is huge pressure on amateurs and it was pressure I suppose they had brought on themselves with their success. When I heard about that I just looked around the stands in Thurles, where there was nobody, and I thought ‘this is the best way to prepare’.

“You want to try and keep it as low-key as possible. Kilkenny had the world of expectation on them, while we’d been building for three years to get to that moment, and it all just clicked for us on the day.”

The roles have been slightly reversed this year, as the pressure is now on Tipperary, yet Cummins reckons it’s not just the best team that will win, but the one that concentrates hardest.

“Possession is definitely the key, because if you don’t have it, it is very hard to get the ball back. You know Kilkenny don’t waste it, no more than we do. So if you cough up possession on a turnover it could be vital. That makes concentration so important. You’ll see it etched on all the players. It is really, really intense and that is the way that the big prize has to be fought for.”

Brendan Cummins

Position: Goalkeeper

Age:36

Club:Ballybacon Grange

Height:6ft 1in Weight: 15st

Occupation:AIB Financial Consultant (in Kilkenny!)

Championship debut: 1995, v Waterford

Championship appearances:66 (hurling championship record)

Championship scoring record:0-1 (in last year's All-Ireland final) Honours: 2 senior All-Ireland hurling; 4 senior Munster; 4 National Hurling League; 1 All-Ireland under-21; 5 All Stars.