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Louth's Ciarán Byrne made a spectacular catch to secure victory against Dublin in the All-Ireland SFC round-one match at Croke Park. The catch was a turning point in the game and sealed the win for Louth.
4 MIN READ Louth’s Ciarán Byrne celebrates a score as Louth inched closer to victory against Dublin in last Sunday's All-Ireland SFC round-one match at Croke Park.
Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inphoat Croke Park last Sunday, going from six down to four up. As their goalkeeper Niall McDonnell stood over a kick-out with 43 seconds left, their advantage was back to two.caught that ball, the outcome would have been in the balance. Tommy Durnin is a big lad and a decent target for just this sort of moment.
But instead of going up to fetch it himself, he found his shoulders and head being used as a footrest by his teammate and former Aussie Rules player Ciarán Byrne, who ran 15 yards, launched himself into the air and came down with about as spectacular a match-winning catch as you’re going to see. The TV replay is a piece of theatre in itself.
Durnin swings around, in the slightly harried fashion you’d expect of a man who has just had his head softened up by someone’s knee. Byrne, meanwhile, has jumped so high he barely needs to extend his arms. It’s extraordinary athleticism. And the celebration is perfect as well – a little tongue-wag just to say he enjoyed it as much as everyone else had.
Paul Matthews kicks a score moments later and Conall McKeever wins the break from the ensuing kick-out, but Byrne’s catch was the key. Whether he called for the mark, or just took it, is a mere trifle. Maybe he thought calling for it would have ruined the aesthetic. In that moment, he iced the game and the whole stadium knew it.
See any anomaly in the debate about the GAA and pay walls? Malachy Clerkin: The Ger Brennan saga would have fizzled out without Jarlath Burns making his snide asideA minute later Byrne was announced as man of the match, despite only coming on as a second-half substitute.
After issuing the usual platitudes about wanting to put the record straight after their disappointing defeat to the Dubs in Portlaoise, he gave the following response to a question from Gráinne McElwain about the game-defining fetch.
“It’s been a very frustrating career for me," he said. “I’ve had a lot of injuries so this means a lot – I’ve put a lot of hard work in to get back to this stage, so hopefully it continues. ” Substitutes often talk about a frustrating few weeks if they’re not on the starting team. Players can talk about a frustrating season if they feel they haven’t gotten a clear run at the year.
But in that exact context, just moments after the final whistle, to hear him talk about what this moment meant for his entire footballing life was both enlightening and kind of heartbreaking. He elaborated with the written press a few minutes later, the emotion still written across his face. He ruptured his cruciate twice, once in Australia while still with Carlton in 2016, and again in 2023.
He also suffered a bad ankle break on his return to Ireland in late 2018. After that injury he was told he’d never play football again. No wonder the tears flowed on Sunday. It was a reminder that these Australian jaunts are fraught with danger.
When injuries hit over there, contracts can dry up. Shorn of a support network of friends and family, it can be so difficult. For Byrne, it was injuries that stunted his Louth career on his return – and talking to Louth supporters this week, what’s never been in doubt is his unstinting love for the jersey, no matter the obstacles thrown in front of him.
Kobe McDonald put in an impressive shift for Mayo in their narrow victory against Monaghan at St Tiernach's Park, Clones, last Sunday. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho But other players struggle to make that return from Australia for different reasons. Like a promising soccer player returning to Ireland after a spell in England, it must be a really tough adjustment. It would be impossible not to spend time second-guessing the twists and turns that are part of being a professional sportsman.
You loved sport and for a while it didn’t love you back. Marty Clarke and Conor McKenna returned to Ireland and then went back out. Tommy Walsh came home but was a different kind of contributor to Kerry football than the kid that left first time out. Cillian McDaid is now one of the best footballers in the country – it didn’t happen for him immediately on his return toshaved down to one with time almost up.
Jack Livingstone’s kick-out went into a thicket of bodies and above a morass of limbs soared Kobe McDonald. Mayo’s starlet had iced this game too, using a catching technique that could have been taken straight from a Louis Marcus film. If Byrne’s catch was pure AFL, then McDonald’s was pure Crossmolina. Here, surely, were the Ghosts of AFL Past and Future on the same Sunday afternoon.
A skill Byrne brought home, along with a thousand different emotions. And, at the opposite end of the journey, a young man showing the GAA skills that attracted Australia in the first place. If we thought that the prospect of English paper 1 was going to distract Kobe, or if we thought he was a butterfly about to be broken on a Dessie Ward-shaped wheel, we were disabused of that notion across another 70 minute tour de force.
Right now, he’s exceptional. We’ll never know the footballer he could be if he were to stay, or the footballer he’ll be if he returns in a few years. There are no guarantees, something Ciarán Byrne knows all too well.
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