McKenna caps breakthrough campaign with POTY award and first successful dip into management

When Paddy McKenna set out at the start of this season his goals were fairly modest. The Clane goalkeeper was hoping to finally establish himself as the number one netminder for the Kildare seniors, with one of Kildare’s longest serving and most appreciated players, Paul Dermody, standing in his way. Add in some competition from clubmate Mark Doyle and McKenna’s ambitions, though modest sounding, were entirely realistic.

A few months on and McKenna is now firmly established as first choice, and last Friday his superb season was capped off magnificently by being named the Christy Ring Cup Player of the Year for 2018. A first All-Star was already a fabulous achievement for his first season as a regular and being named as the best player in this year’s competition only added to a stellar season.

“It’s mad,” McKenna told the Kildare Post after receiving his award.

“We got a book with Kildare this year to set out our goals in it, and I kind of went gung-ho at the start and a couple of training sessions in I put down what I was hoping for – to get the number jersey in the first round of the league against Meath and to build from that. You never really put yourself down for an All-Star because you can’t guarantee you’ll be there as such, so it was great that way.”

While Cian Lynch, the overall Hurler of the Year for 2018, found out that he would be receiving the special individual accolade on the Wednesday before the awards ceremony, McKenna didn’t find out until his name was read out on the night.

He was already revelling in the fact that he had received an All-Star award, but to cap it off with the top gong was a complete shock to the 24-year-old, who noted that any one of Mark Moloney, Eanna O’Neill or Jack Sheridan could have received the award.

“It was great to get it,” McKenna said of getting the letter to let him know he would receive an All-Star award.

When asked about how it felt to hear his name called out for the Player of the Year award, McKenna exclaimed; “That was a big surprise now!

“Whatever about the All-Star, that was much bigger. You kind of have an inkling that it’s going to be a Kildare player going by previous years because it kind of goes off the winning county’s team. There was the four of us, but Jack has been unreal. I think he scored 4-1 in the final and semi-finals, that’s some scoring. He got a crucial goal against Mayo to get the win up there and I think he got 2-5 against Wicklow that day as well. He was inspirational – the same with Moloney and Eanna.

“The half-back line was probably our main line all year, and they set everything up for the boys. That line and the full-back line, they played nearly all the games together, so it was good to have that stability on front of you.”

It was a rare occasion for a goalkeeper to achieve the top award, and it is probably one that the famed ‘goalkeepers’ union’ will tip their hats to, but it was a thoroughly deserved one. McKenna produced some fine performances as Kildare captured the Christy Ring Cup, with his tremendous display against Derry in the semi-final the highlight of his season.

McKenna credits goalkeeping coach Willie Banks, who has since left the Kildare management setup alongside Joe Quaid, for helping to improve his game.

“Willie [Banks], the goalkeeping coach, was on to me the next day and he was over the moon,” revealed McKenna.

“He put in an awful lot of work in the three years he was with us, and you can see it in myself or Mark [Doyle] or Paul [Dermody]. Any of the three of us could have done a job.”

A quirk of fate would have it that one high profile former intercounty goalkeeper is replacing another as the Kildare manager, with Kilkenny great David Herity taking up the position vacated by Joe Quaid.

McKenna knows Herity already from doing a couple of training sessions with the new boss in Clane over the years, and he is looking forward to having another goalkeeper at the helm in 2019.

“I’ve know him because he has done a couple of sessions with Clane a few years back and I’ve bumped into him at a few of the matches,” he said.

“As I said before, Joe brought us to a whole new level from what we were at, and it’s up to David and his management team to get us to the next stage.”

“You probably get to know them a bit better because they’ve played in the same position as you and they can understand it if you’re having a bad training session or a bad match,” said McKenna on the advantage of having a former goalkeeper as manager.

“They’re probably not as likely to oust you as quick as a manager who was playing previously as an outfielder or a lad that hasn’t played at all. They’d probably be very quick to make a decision on you as a goalkeeper. From what he was saying, it sounds like he’ll be fairly hands on with us in training. It’ll be good to get to know him and build a good relationship with him and hopefully have a bit more success.”

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When the dust had settled on the celebrations from Friday night it was back to the GAA pitch for McKenna, though this time he was in the role of manager as he led the Clane U21s to the U21 B Hurling Championship title with a thrilling 3-15 to 2-16 win over Naas on Sunday.

“It hasn’t been a bad weekend,” laughed McKenna.

“Anything I can do to help out Clane I’ll happily do it. It was touch and go whether we’d enter a team at all this year because numbers were low, but it was good to get a couple of lads that are predominantly football out like Brian McLoughlin and Ethan O’Donoghue. They gave a big dig out and it was good to get over the line.”