Ryan finally gleaning rewards for his years of loyal service

HE’S HAD a long, hard season – and in some ways a long, hard career too – but these days PJ Ryan is still stealing the spotlight of Kilkenny’s four-in-a-row All-Ireland hurling success

And deservedly so.

One of the last loose ends of the intercounty season was tied up in Dublin yesterday with the presentation of the final Vodafone Player of the Month awards, and Ryan’s name going on the hurling honour for September was no surprise to anyone in attendance.

He was already honoured with the man-of-the-match trophy for his extraordinary goalkeeping display in Kilkenny’s All-Ireland win over Tipperary, and it will be a major surprise if Ryan fails to collect his first All Star award later this month.

What makes these honours all the sweeter is they’ve been a long time coming. Ryan was five years on the Kilkenny senior panel before he got his first championship start in goal, and many people around him must have wondered if his time would ever come. Now the 32 year-old can look back and say “told you so.”

Truth is his father, also PJ, spent a similarly long time in the shadows, and never got his break. That only makes Ryan all the more appreciative of his belated rewards: “It wasn’t that hard, really, being sub to James McGarry,” he said.

“James was probably the top goalkeeper in the game. So it wasn’t difficult at all. I suppose to keep going back in the panel, the spirit and the craic you’d have with the lads, and I suppose we were winning, it was no problem going back at all. The honour of being on the Kilkenny panel, you will keep going as long as you can.

“But I was probably five years there, before I got a start. I played against Dublin in the championship one year all right. That’s just because James had a broken ankle. James was back for the Leinster final. I suppose you always keep the faith. You keep going training. I got the chance and when the chance came I took it. It made this season special, but every season is special really, just to be on the panel in the first place.

“It was a similar position for my father, like my story with James, in that he was sub to probably one of the best goalkeepers ever as well. He always gave me advice to stay going as long as you can and if you keep training maybe the break will come your way and sure that’s the way it worked out.”

In reflecting on the All-Ireland win, his clean sheet and series of heroic saves against Tipperary, Ryan puts it down to a “good day at the office” but it was more than that: “We got a bit of luck as well,” he admitted. “Eoin Kelly slipped for his goal chance. On another day that would have went in and you’d never know what might have happened.

“But a save is a save, whether it is a spectacular one, as they say, or a routine one. They all have to be stopped. I was glad to get the hurl to them. I suppose as well I was due to keep the ball out of the net a couple of times against Tipp. I had let in 13 goals in two or three matches against them, more recently in the league final. Just to keep the ball out on the day was very pleasing.”

The fact that McGarry never won an All Star remains an extremely sore issue in Kilkenny, and while Ryan is sure to end the county’s wait, he’s not counting his chickens either: “There are three of us nominated and any one of us could win it. I’d have no more of a right to win an All Star than Brendan Cummins or Clinton Hennessy. Whoever gets it, gets it. Whoever doesn’t what can you do? You go on and hurl away again.

“But I was surprised all right that McGarry never won one. I suppose the thing about James was that he made everything look simple and when lads had to make saves James probably had a situation read. In Kilkenny we all knew what James was about. I suppose he just didn’t get the individual recognition he should have got.”

Ryan is making up for all of that now. Kilkenny team-mate Henry Shefflin took the August hurling award while Kerry’s Tom O’Sullivan and Cork’s Graham Canty picked up the football awards for September and August.