Waterford's 'greatest goalie' O'Keeffe saves Ballygunner against spirited Doon
O'keeffe Picture: Geczo Man: Ballygunner Stephen ©inpho/laszlo Goalkeeper Key
Stephen O’Keeffe came back to haunt his old Waterford manager but Derek McGrath couldn’t curse a goalkeeper he hails as the county's greatest ever.
Second-half saves from Jack Ryan and Pat Ryan were crucial to Ballygunner overcoming this sticky wicket in Limerick and McGrath knew how fundamental those interventions were to Doon coming up short of upsetting the odds.
“He's the greatest goalie Waterford has ever had,” gushed McGrath.
“He's one of the greatest goalies. Go back and look at the 2007 and 2008 All-Ireland college finals and look at the saves he made against Thurles CBS, Kilkenny CBS, he's doing that all his life and a nice chap into the bargain.”
Seven short days after their historic first Limerick SHC title, McGrath couldn’t fault the effort of his men as they turned in a display that belied the theory that their exuberant celebrations would find them wanting.
#GAABEO 32 nóim @DoonGaaClub 0-13 (13)@ballygunnerHc 0-9 (9)
— Spórt TG4 (@SportTG4) November 3, 2024
Sábháil den scoth ag Stephen O Keefe
Could this be the turning point in the Game??#GAA #Hurling
BEO/LIVE ar @TG4TV pic.twitter.com/c7IBsuCl84
“Everything they had, every sinew in their body went into it. The regret is there were opportunities there, Stephen's brilliance. I'd say the save was almost like a turning point, having had a chance to reflect on it but Jack did everything right.
“We'd said during the week that Stephen, you have to bring it right in on top of him if you want to score on him. He did that, to be fair. Just a brilliant save.
“Unsurprising in the fact that he saves goals, but the totality of effort from Doon was just very special to behold but Ballygunner found a way. Great team, great champions.”
Ballygunner manager Darragh O’Sullivan wasn’t shy in exclaiming his No1 either, starting with the first denial of Jack Ryan.
“We scored 25 points, 17 points the second half is a serious score. But it's probably SOK's save that gave the momentum. When someone does something like that, that's really, really special, you kind of say, ‘Fuck this’.
“God, that was special. Let's go again here. But he has that in his locker. We've seen him do it day in, day out. He's a phenomenal player. I think he's well up there to be the best goalkeeper of all time.
“The top goalies can read the body language of players too, and he is right up there. So, I don't know. But it was some save. And the second one, I think from Pat Ryan, he bounced right into the ground and he went full length as well.”
McGrath knew it was perceived Doon weren’t focused but that didn’t take into consideration their winning mentality. “In terms of the general perception it was, ‘That’s Doon's first one, so they're on the beer for the week.' And there's elements of that that are very true in terms of just maybe two or three days.
“If you look at the experience of Richie English, Barry Murphy, Pat Ryan, Darragh O'Donovan, Adam, I think I said it was 19 All-Ireland medals between panellists etc in the room, so it's a fair starting point.
“We said all week we didn't want to get into the mentality of, ‘Look, we've had a great year anyway, we've kind of ended a famine.’ We tried to go to the end and I think we did as good as we could.”