Perfection the goal for keeper of the lore

Tom Humphries finds the Cork goalkeeper acutely conscious of the tradition he represents and obsessive in his resolve to uphold it

Donal Óg Cusack sits back on his chair and then suddenly leans forward again. Even in repose he radiates the intense nervous energy of a jumpy feline. They say that in the Cork dressing-room their goalkeeper is a man with a lot to say. You can see why. He burns with a fidgety but passionate hunger for perfection.

Tending goal for the Cork hurlers is a job with long-term prospects. Donal Óg's predecessor, mentor and friend Ger Cunningham held the jersey long enough for it to become part of his DNA. Donal Óg is into the sixth season of his tenure and not too far past his mid-20s. Those in the queue behind him had best have patience as a virtue.

Over the seasons he has filled out into his six-foot frame but not overly. Amidst the hurly-burly that characterises life within the small square on a championship Sunday he can often look alarmingly like skin and bone about to be buffeted by muscle and heft, but his quick feet and his old friend Diarmuid O'Sullivan keep him alive and working.

Famously of course, he is from Cloyne, from a house two doors up from where Christy Ring came into the world. When he speaks about hurling he speaks with that tradition lightly cowling him. He talks of the lost Munster final this year, of the importance of that fixture if "you come from a family like mine or a place like where I grew up in".

Continuity is a key part of what Cusack is. His accession to the number one jersey wasn't a cut-and-dried matter of the king being dead, long live the king. Having tended goal on Jimmy Barry Murphy's All-Ireland-winning minors of 1995, Cusack was a senior panellist by 1997, apprentice to the master. Himself and Cunningham worked long, hard hours to ensure the transition of power was smooth, one dedicatedly obsessive man passing on to another. They practise together still and in the days after big matches spend long, slow hours poring over the forensics of any conceded goal. This summer's longest investigation concerned Paul Flynn's extraordinarily audacious free in the Munster final, a shot that whickered into the netspace behind Donal Óg. A simple inquiry brings out the perfectionist in him.

"I wish, I really wish I could sit you down and show you that goal from the goalkeeping point of view. It's different. I'd say I have looked at it 20 times from every angle. Myself and Ger went through it again and again. With a player like Paul you know there is always the chance he'll try something like that. We looked at the way we had our defence lined up between Paul and the goal, my positioning, what the possibilities were, what could have been done. I think we took precautions against it and we learned to take precautions again."

Himself and Cunningham make an odd pair. Cunningham, long and laconic and eminently relaxed has transfused a little of his easy-going patina into Donal Óg's make-up. He examines old tapes for mistakes but doesn't do himself grievous bodily harm beating himself up over them.

"I've learned lots of things from Ger as regards technique and positioning but I suppose the main thing is to relax. Not to work too hard, to get rest and stay sharp and to keep focused in games if a goal goes in. Those are useful things."

He is a survivor from both the heady summer of 1999 and the turbulent winter of 2002. Back when Jimmy Barry's team were young and first flexing themselves by winning the last All-Ireland of the departed century he had a right to think the side he was in had a foothold on immortality. It hasn't unfolded that way. And Kilkenny, losers on that wicked day five years ago, have stolen all the thunder since.

Since last year's loss to Kilkenny though he says neither he nor the team has looked back.

"When the game was done it was done. What we took away from it was that we had the ability to compete again at that level. We had shown strengths people might have thought we lacked."

What followed was surprising to the outsider but not jarring enough to knock Cork out of their rhythm. Setanta Ó hAilpín was plucked from Blarney and brought to Melbourne, depriving Cork of most of their surprise value. Then Brian Corcoran came back from the edge of oblivion. Donal Óg was fazed by neither event.

"The way we looked at Setanta going was a positive thing. We knew what he brought to us as a team, we knew what he gave us on the pitch and off it. But he got the chance to be something most of us would like to be. He got the chance to be a professional sportsperson.

"We didn't sit around to mourn him being gone. We said fair play to him; we were pleased one of us had gone away to live out that dream. I wrote to Setanta and he wrote me back a nice letter and sent me a Carlton training top, which is something I will treasure because he's a special kind of fella.

"With Brian I knew he'd be back. On the night we lost the All-Ireland last year he was around the team hotel a lot . . . and I could tell by things he said that he was weighing up that things had improved in the set-up. As soon as he said he was coming back for his club I knew he would be playing for Cork again because Brian is like a lot of us, playing for Cork is equally as important as playing for the club. I go to the same gym as Brian in Silversprings and we would have talked about things a good bit. I knew he wouldn't do just one."

Through it all there is the insight of the full-time observer, the man who stands behind his team and watches their patterns and their play, takes their pulse. He knows the thread of the team and the nuances of their moods.

This year is still pregnant with possibility. Not too much examination was needed after the defeat to Kilkenny last September. In the days after they lost the Munster final this year they explored whether they cared enough. Donal Ó Grady asked them if they wanted to leave it like that or if they wanted to battle. Having found their answer they went out and beat Tipperary.

For Donal Óg Cusack, one imagines, there wasn't too much soul-searching to be done. The drive for perfection allows no time for fallow years.