When it comes to Mayo v Dublin, you always have to leave room for a little psychodrama with the goalkeepers. They’ve met on 11 occasions since 2006 – incredibly, only four men have stood between the sticks across those years. Stephen Cluxton and Evan Comerford for Dublin, David Clarke and Robbie Hennelly for Mayo. All of them have had their time in the sun and their time in the stocks.
Clarke v Bernard Brogan in 2012. Hennelly v Bernard Brogan in 2013. Cluxton’s brain freeze down the stretch in 2015. The Clarke-Hennelly-Clarke switcheroo in 2016. Cluxton’s save from Andy Moran in 2017, followed up almost immediately by Clarke’s from Paul Mannion. The Dublin press demolishing Hennelly’s kick-outs in 2019. Comerford’s anxious dither near the end of normal time in 2021. Hennelly’s redemption in the same game.
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Into the swirl this weekend dives a fifth protagonist. Colm Reape’s first season as the Mayo goalkeeper has followed the posting’s usual dizzying path. Man of the Match in the league final – voted the GAA.ie Player of the Week, no less. Joint top-scorer for his team the following week against Roscommon but having to pick the ball out of the net twice into the bargain. Big saves against David Clifford and Damien Comer in the signature wins that have got Mayo to the last eight. Ransacked periodically on his kick-outs, particularly against Galway last Sunday.
He is an unlikely addition to the cast, it must be said. Not only was Reape not an intercounty player for most of those battles, he wasn’t even a goalkeeper. Not a Gaelic football one, at any rate. Though he spent plenty of his teenage years as a soccer stopper, he was a full-forward for Knockmore and was handy enough in the role to make it on to the fringes of a notably good Mayo under-21 panel in 2016.
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It wasn’t until the dog days of the 2020 Mayo championship that he found himself repurposed as a goalkeeper. Knockmore had a vacancy, Ray Dempsey wanted to try something different, the country was still in that quasi-lockdown phase where no idea was to stupid to say out loud.
Within 16 months, Knockmore had won back-to-back titles, Reape had kept clean sheets in both finals and James Horan had brought him into the Mayo squad. Clarke’s retirement in early 2021 meant that there was a spot going as third goalkeeper behind Hennelly and Rory Byrne.
“His progress has been very impressive,” says Michael Schlingermann, himself a veteran of that backup to the backup role. Schlingermann tried for a while to break into the Clarke-Hennelly axis but, ultimately, found there was no room for him and threw his lot in with soccer instead. Nobody knows better how easy it would have been for Reape to do that same.
“When you strip it back, he’s gone from being third-choice to being first-choice in the space of a season,” Schlingermann says. “He took his opportunity with the new management and he jumped two spots. I was the victim of that myself at times. I was there in 2019 and I couldn’t get in between the two lads.
“But Colm has got in. He’s worked hard. He’s done everything that’s been asked of him and he’s kept the jersey. And, now, he has the biggest stage to work on, Croke Park against the Dubs. That’s going to be a first for him. But he’s achieved a lot of firsts already.”
In many ways, Reape is an anomaly. He’s a newbie but he’s not a kid. Those under-21 teams he played on were of the same vintage as Ryan O’Donoghue, Matthew Ruane and Diarmuid O’Connor. He hare-and-tortoised them to get to the same place they are now.
And it shows. He’s 27 this year but you can tell just by looking at his that he’s a relatively recent arrival on the inter-county scene. His physique isn’t that of a lad who has devoted the past decade to the life of elite conditioning. He looks like what he is – a quality club player who has found his way to the big show long after his contemporaries. You don’t get many of those in the modern game.
“His ability as an outfield player stands to him,” says Schlingermann. “I think there’s a real misconception when people talk about outfield players going into goal – I would argue that they get too much credit for their kicking. But the technique you need for kicking well off a tee has nothing to do with what you’re like as an outfield player in GAA. It’s a soccer kick, not a Gaelic kick.
“But what Colm does really well is carry the ball. He is able to gather it and come out with it three or four times in a half and not panic, not get turned over, not get a nosebleed. He is able to turn out of a tackle and get a handpass away. None of his defenders are nervous about having him on the ball. That, to me, is the biggest advantage he has from being a converted full-forward.”
One way or another, every bit of him will be tested against the Dubs. Last Sunday, Mayo lost 12 of 20 kick-outs but still managed to win the game. They surely won’t be able to dance between the raindrops in the same way again here. Reape has seen every colour and shade in his short stint as number one.
Highs and lows, wobbles and wins. Precisely the sort of profile to suit the exquisite torture of another Mayo-Dublin showdown.
On the evidence so far, he will fit right in.
