It's always fascinating to watch Minor GAA as you get to see the stars of the future and see players develop into roles they'll become more familiar with once they reach the senior level.
Looking back there's a few players who began life at minor level in a completely different position where no one would associate them in these days. One of those players is Kerry's Bryan Sheehan.
The Cahirciveen man began playing minor for Kerry as a goalkeeper at 15 before flourishing into a midfielder as a senior and win 5 All-Irelands with the Kingdom.
Sheehan was the goalie and captain of the Kerry minor team when he was 16 and though he seems like the perfect candidate to be a modern day ‘fly goalie,’ he says he never even dreamt of it back then, with his manager Charlie Nelligan not liking it he says while at the launch of the 2024 Electric Ireland GAA Minor Championship.
I could imagine if I tried that back then, Charlie Nelligan wouldn’t have been too gone on it,
I’d have given him a heart attack or he’d have given me a good shooing, one or the other
Pictured is former Kerry Minor footballer, Bryan Sheehan, at the launch of the 2024 Electric Ireland GAA Minor Championships. This summer, Electric Ireland will use their social channels to spotlight players from across the Championships, in recognition of the major impact that playing Minor can have on young people’s future successes, on and off the field. You can follow the campaign on social media @ElectricIreland and via the hashtag #ThisIsMajor.
Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan
An All-Star and five-time All-Ireland winner as a midfielder, it’s easily forgotten that Sheehan began his Kerry career as a goalkeeper on the minor team. That all came about by chance, in the early months of 2001.
I played all my football out the field, I fell into the goals I’d say, from the point of view that I was kicking 45s at home and the club asked me to go into goal because of the long kick.
That was around February/March in the county league. Within three or four weeks, Jack O’Connor wanted me to go into the schools team in goals, because I was kicking it fifty yards at that stage. Before I knew it, Charlie Nelligan was watching school games and brought me into the minor, so in the space of three months, I went from never playing in goals to playing in goals for the Kerry minors.
It was grand the first year. There was a bit of anxiety alright in terms of I hope I don’t make a mistake. Shot stopping probably wasn’t my strongest point.
I was probably in there for my height, my hands and my kick. So there was the uncertainty of whether I could be a shot-stopper. It was always my ambition to go back out the field. I knew that out the field was where my heart was.
Bryan Sheehan moved out the field for the Kerry minors in his final year and never looked back. And while he didn't win an All-Ireland minor, he did win three Munster titles and says the experience of playing minor stood to him hugely down the line.
I was very lucky to be exposed to that level of football from such a young age.
Going in there at 15, to play in goal, it was a great learning curve for me from the point of view of training, preparing for games, going into Munster finals in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, I think all those things really stood to me.
Small things, hearing some fella in the crowd calling your name, trying to distract you, that was a great learning curve. It’s a massive experience.
We won three Munster finals, never won an All-Ireland, but it gave me a taste for it.
I was thinking ‘I want to do this again, I want to go to senior, play in front of packed Croke Parks, packed Fitzgerald Stadiums. It was a great stepping stone for me in that sense.
21 August 2011; Bryan Sheehan, Kerry. GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Semi-Final, Mayo v Kerry, Croke Park, Dublin. Picture credit: Brian Lawless / SPORTSFILE
The wheel always turns and at 38, Sheehan was back in the goals for his club St Mary's Cahirciveen last year.
Finally, he got to make a few forays out the field.
I went into goal last year with my own club St Mary’s, our goalie went travelling so they were stuck for one.
I went into goal, and I was taking off up the field. It works if you’ve a goalkeeper who is a comfortable ball player, like with Ethan Rafferty there with Armagh. You can see how good he is,” he reasons.
Every player has their own unique journey to the top level and Sheehan is no different. However the drastic change from goalie to midfield shows just how good of an athlete Sheehan was and you can never fully predict where these minor players will end up.
READ ALSO: 7 GAA Minors With A Father Who Also Played Intercounty Football Or Hurling
