Three players come to mind when Eoin Roche considers those with the best hurling hands he's seen come through DCU: Dublin's Donal Burke, Kilkenny's John Donnelly, and Westmeath's Killian Doyle. In September, Doyle became the first Westmeath hurler in 36 years to be nominated for a PwC All-Star award.
"The three of them, their hands, their striking is unreal," DCU Fitzgibbon Cup hurling manager Roche tells Balls.
"It's just the control Killian has, his first touch, the ways his hands move around the ball; if it gets into his area, he's able to take it into his hand so quick."
The ability to bend the ball to his will, and strike off both sides, was born in the back garden where Killian, along with his twin brother Ciaran, spent their days honing the basics of the game.
Johnny Greville, who lives just down the road from the Doyles, coached Killian at various grades with Raharney and at inter-county minor level. He will also be part of Joe Fortune's Westmeath backroom team next year.
20 June 2010; Mark Patterson, Bredagh, Co. Down, in action against Killian Doyle, Raharney, Co. Westmeath, Division 2 Hurling Final. Coca-Cola GAA Féile na nGael Finals 2010. Cusack Park, Ennis, Co. Clare. Picture credit: Diarmuid Greene / SPORTSFILE
"His dad Michael was a fantastic hurler for Raharney," says Greville.
"I remember passing by coming home from work, and you'd see them out in the backyard with the goalposts up. Michael would be out there with the two lads.
"It would be skills drills, the two lads picking up the ball and striking on the left and the right. It did start with Raharney but a lot of it stems from the time their dad put in supporting their love of the game. He did that outside of the club.
"The two lads really concentrated on the basic skills, and perfected them, they added a bit of flair, and a little bit of personality that they bring to it as well.
"I saw Ciaran in the county semi-final this year in at full-forward, carrying an injury, but still causing loads of bother. He'd have the tricks and flicks, over the shoulder shots.
"The sideline ball that Joe Canning hit over the bar [in the 2017 All-Ireland semi-final] against Tipperary, that's what the lads have in their locker. They are match winners; Killian, especially at the moment, he's a match winner."
Ciarán Doyle with a sensational point for Westmeath pic.twitter.com/5yOb6uvSPM
— The GAA (@officialgaa) May 8, 2021
Roche first spied Doyle's talent during the 2015 Leinster minor championship when he was part of the Dublin backroom team.
That year was a breakthrough one for Westmeath. They annihilated Wicklow in the first round, beat Carlow by two points in the second round, and then upset Wexford - at Wexford Park - in the quarter-final. The Doyles accounted for 1-11 of Westmeath's 2-11 in that two-point quarter-final win.
"We played them in the Leinster semi-final," says Roche.
"Killian, Ciaran, and Niall Mitchell were three of the best minors in the country that year. We were very, very lucky to beat them. Killian was excellent that day."
20 June 2015; Killian Doyle, Westmeath, in action against Paddy Smyth, left, and Cian Hendricken, Dublin. Electric Ireland Leinster GAA Hurling Minor Championship, Semi-Final, Westmeath v Dublin, Cusack Park, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath.Picture credit: Dáire Brennan / SPORTSFILE
Greville was the Westmeath minor manager that year, and believes the campaign saw the beginning of a mindset change. In a major Leinster quarter-final shock the following season, the Westmeath U21s defeated a Kilkenny side managed by Eddie Brennan.
"That game against Wexford was probably the start of the journey, and the start of a belief process in some of the players that played that day," he says.
"They thought, 'Maybe we can, if we put in the effort and go to the levels required, mix it with the top teams in the top tiers'. That was a starting point for the standards to be raised throughout all the grades. Now we're seeing that cohort of players operating in Liam MacCarthy and Division 1."
By the end of 2016, the Doyles had already won two Westmeath senior hurling titles with Raharney under the management of Greville.
In 2014, aged just 17, Killian scored nine points, six from play, as Raharney defeated Castlepollard in the county final. Ciaran scored 1-1 that day.
Two years later, Raharney came back from eight points down at half-time, having scored just two in the opening 30 minutes, to defeat Clonkill and win the club's 13th ever county title. Killian contributed nine points.
"In 2014, we blended the youth and experience," says Greville. "I had no fears or doubts in the ability of those lads to be able to perform at senior level. We needed to expose them to that as early as we could.
"That day [in 2016] was probably one of the best days we had as a club. We scored two points in the first half, and we ended up scoring 2-16 in the second half.
"At half-time, you could see it in the lads' eyes. That was from me knowing them personally, and coaching them for a long time. They went out and did their club and families proud that day.
"What stood out was the basics: Their touch was just 40 per cent ahead of everybody else. They were able to get the ball into their hands that bit quicker, and be able to get scores, generate opportunities for the players around them."
24 January 2019; Killian Doyle of DCU Dóchas Éireann in action against Brian Everard of CIT during the Electric Ireland Fitzgibbon Cup Group C Round 2 match between DCU Dóchas Éireann and Cork Institute of Technology at DCU Sportsgrounds in Dublin. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
After initially enrolling at DIT, Doyle switched to DCU. Roche first got a chance to coach him in what was an historic 2017/18 season as DCU reached its first ever Fitzgibbon Cup final. He recalls a league game against DIT where the forward scored 1-12.
"There was a typical Killian Doyle point," says Roche.
"I think it was actually Jogger Doyle (Tommy Doyle) that batted it out. Killian volleyed it first time on his right-hand side over the bar, it was outrageous stuff."
In that year's quarter-final, DCU faced Mary I, the reigning two-in-a-row champions who had Tim O'Mahony at centre-back and Cian Lynch at centre-forward. Doyle stepped off the bench after 20 minutes to score three points from play in a two-point victory. "He was excellent in the semi-final against DIT as well that year," says Roche.
In the final against UL, a game DCU lost by six points, second half substitute Doyle didn't have the same impact as previous games. The following season, DCU lost out in the semi-finals to UCC. During their time working together, owing to the tough decisions a manager has to make about players, Roche and Doyle didn't always see eye to eye.
"We might not have finished on the best terms after that game against UCC," says Roche, "but I was diagnosed with cancer in 2019, and Killian was one of the first people to contact me. I thought that was top class."
2 April 2022; Killian Doyle of Westmeath with the cup after the Allianz Hurling League Division 2A Final match between Down and Westmeath at FBD Semple Stadium in Thurles, Tipperary. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Doyle made his inter-county debut in 2016. This season, one in which he scored 0-58 in five championship games, including 14 points against both Galway and Kilkenny, was his seventh at senior level.
A year after winning the Joe McDonagh Cup for the first time, and earning promotion to the hurling championship's top tier, Westmeath retained their Liam MacCarthy Cup status by finishing fifth in Leinster. They also won Division 2A of the National Hurling League. The bow on top of the season was Doyle becoming Westmeath's first All-Star nominee since David Kilcoyne in 1986.
"I was talking to Joe Fortune about him at the start of last year, and how he was getting on, and how he's improved," says Roche.
"In the 18/19 season, I was involved with Dublin seniors. [DCU] played the Dublin in a challenge, and the one thing Mattie Kenny wanted to know was, 'Who is your man?'
"His work ethic, from the first time I met him, to where he is now, is a different level.
"He had to [improve in that respect] to make that jump from a very, very good underage hurler to now being a very good senior inter-county hurler."
Killian Doyle scored 11 points for @RaharneyHurling in yesterday's Westmeath hurling final.
His two long-range sideline cuts in the first-half were a bit special 🤩 pic.twitter.com/yHHJ7Se7t6— Will O'Callaghan (@willocallaghan) November 8, 2021
Those are improvements which Greville has also recognised.
"When the lads were underage, and it's something I pinpointed from U14 up to minor, was Killian, for example, being the main player in the team. A lot of stuff was on his shoulders, and other players would have fed him with the ball. Maybe he didn't have to do the same amount of work as the rest of the guys to get possession," says Greville.
"We had to change that when we brought him onto the next level. His development over the last six years, particularly his physical development, has been phenomenal.
"I know from the stats from last year for tackles, turnovers, hooks and blocks, he would have concentrated an awful lot on increasing his stats on that side of it while maintaining his scoring stats, shot ratio, support play.
"Physically, he's developed into a really strong Liam MacCarthy, Division 1 player. That's the biggest change in the last two or three years. It would have been the biggest jump I've seen.
"I'm lucky enough next year to be involved with the Westmeath seniors with Joe Fortune. I'll be looking forward to seeing how Killian performs in Division 1 and Liam MacCarthy.
"That's a big thing for Westmeath, and Killian. After getting that reward, he can go and showcase his skills again at the top level. He relishes that. He's always shown a huge level of performance against top tier teams.
"Even at club level when we went into Leinster Championships he really stood out, no matter what teams did - they'd double mark him, triple mark him - but he still had an influence on the game. That's down to himself, and the work he puts in."
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