By John Harrington

Former Tipperary hurler, Brendan Cummins, has a special place in All-Stars hurling lore.

With five All-Stars to his name he’s won more than any other goalkeeper in the history of the game, and it’s an achievement he’s rightly proud of.

“I am because in the modern era the All-Stars a corner-back can nearly be picked to play midfield to find him a slot,” says Cummins.

“But the goalkeeping position throughout history, there's only been three nominees for it and it is a specialist position. It has stayed true as an All-Star and it's extremely competitive every year.

“At the time when you win one it gives you confidence. It's important to have that confidence but it's also important not to be letting any softness creep in and be thinking of what you achieved last year.

“When you retire you reflect back and there's a huge amount of pride in having won those All-Stars, especially with the generation of goalkeepers that were there at the time.

“While we were all competitive with each other, we were also learning off each other. When Donal Óg started going short on the puck-outs I had to adapt. When Fitzhenry was diving around the goals like a cat, I had to adapt.

“We were all learning off each other. Looking back on that generation of goalies it's nice to have gotten a few All-Stars in that era.”

The rivalry between Cummins, Fitzgerald, Fitzhenry, and Cusack was one the media and GAA supporters in general were happy to inflate by consistently debating which of them was the best.

But even though they were always motivated to out-do one another, from a players point of view the rivalry was a very healthy one.

“It was very good, I have to say,” says Cummins. “I never had any problems with any of the firecracker characters like Davy or Donal Óg or any of them. I would have been on a Munster panel with Donal Óg. I captained Munster that night and I came off at half-time to let Donal Óg play the second half because at the time he was under a bit of pressure with Cork.

“We had a really healthy respect and would have looked out for each other. Now, on the pitch, we're animals and we're 180 yards away from each other and roaring down the pitch to say look what I can do, I'm better than you, stuff. That's the way goalkeeping thing is.

“But, no, there would be great camaraderie there. The time I was dropped off the Tipp team in 2007, Damien Fitzhenry would have been a big help to me along the line and the others would have texted me as well to say they were sorry that I was gone from the team.

“We had a very, very healthy rivalry and there was huge respect there. I was never in a room where I wouldn't go straight to the goalie and we'd usually meet half way because they'd be coming over to me. There was never any bitchiness about it or anything like that.”

Cummins couldn’t bring himself to watch the 2007 All-Stars banquet on TV because he was so disillusioned after a championship campaign that saw him dropped in favour of Gerry Kennedy.

Instead he went to his local pitch to train hard for an hour and when he was done he stood in the middle of it and made a promise to himself that the following year he’d be the All-Star goalkeeper.

“Yeah, I decided I'd go training and get ready for the next year. I was trying to keep myself sane. Looking back, I don't know if I genuinely thought at the time that I was definitely going to get back into the Tipp team and win one the following year, but you have to start somewhere and I reckoned that All-Stars that night was the death-knell of the 2007 year and there would be no more talk about it.

“I thought it was a fresh start for me so it was more of a thing of keeping myself sane and grounded. Because there was a vacuum of a couple of months where a new manager was going to be appointed so what do you do?

“You have to have some kind of a focus to keep right otherwise you'd go out of your mind if you're the OCD character I was. So I decided that night was the end of the 2007 season and this is the start of 2008 now and that's why I did that.”

Cummins was true to his word. He won an All-Star in 2008 and the day after the banquet he returned to his local pitch for another solo training session and put his All-Star award in the middle of it where he had made that promise a year earlier as an acknowledgement of the effort he’d put in to make it come true.

“While you're not living in the past in a cocky or arrogant way, you have to pull your confidence from somewhere,” he explains. “For me, confidence is a skill and you have to practice it every day.

“I couldn't say it back when I was playing, but you'd have to have the mindset that I'm the best goalie in the whole world ever, without being overly cocky. When you're in the goals, there's nothing behind you only the back of the net, so something has to be inside you to propel you forward to have the bravery and confidence to do what you do.

“Obviously the thought that you've won an All-Star means that your process is correct. And in times when you're going shit, it's not harm to have a look at the All-Stars or have a look at yourself saving a few balls.

“It reminds you that maybe you're never as bad as you think and you're never as good as you think either. It grounds you, and I think that's what you need as a player. So, it's no harm to reflect on things in a positive way rather than a cocky way and it's only with maturity you learn that.”