LAST Saturday provided one of the best Ulster finals in recent years. It was a pulsating final which had everything from end-to-end action, great scores to a great comeback from Monaghan. It was drama throughout.

But what this Ulster final will be remembered for most is for being the day that Gaelic football fully recognised the potential of its goalkeepers.

The exhibition of future goalkeeping displayed by both Niall Morgan (Tyrone) and Rory Beggan (Monaghan) was truly an amazing spectacle to watch. But for me this came as no surprise because it was not the first time, we had seen goalkeepers join the outfield play in an attempt to give their team an advantage.

Over the past number of seasons we have become more and more accustomed to seeing goalkeepers leave their crease to join the play to gain an attacking advantage on their opponents. But it is not a new phenomenon as goalkeepers like Shane Curran (Roscommon), Graham Brody (Laois) and Paul Courtney (Armagh 2016 v Cavan) have played such a role in the past.

I can even remember playing against St Gall’s in a club game back in the early 2000s and a young, spritely Chris Kerr (Antrim) scoring three points after marauding down our left wing.

The difference for this year’s Ulster final was that it was the first game, that I can remember anyway, that both goalkeepers played deep into their opponent’s half on numerous occasions.

Both Morgan and Beggan pressed each other’s restarts, created overlaps, ran continuously at the opposition defence, played as the sweeper and Beggan even had a chance to score a point from open play which he pulled narrowly wide.

In the 60th minute Morgan was seen pressing the Monaghan corner-back from their restart on the Oriel 21-metre line. Monaghan got the ball out and Morgan filtered back to his goal to resume his goalkeeping duties.

Peter Harte, who had been covering him in goal, was relieved of his goalkeeping duties and rejoined the defence play. At the same time Morgan is returning to his goal, Rory Beggan can be seen crossing the Tyrone 45-metre line unmarked and joining Monaghan’s attacking play.

But the most memorable moment of the final happened when Beggan was pressing one of Niall Morgan’s restarts which was played long and resulted in Mattie Donnelly being played straight through on goal.

Beggan, who did exceptionally well to chase down Donnelly before he could shoot on goal, gets back and makes a fantastic near-hand tackle to dispossess Donnelly on the Monaghan 14-metre line.

Some may argue that Beggan fouled with a pull on Donnelly’s shoulder just before knocking the ball away, but for me it was incidental regarding the outcome as Donnelly still had the chance to carry on andor shoot. In hindsight, a simple point is all Tyrone needed at the time.

Welcome to the next evolutionary step of Gaelic football!

This game has really highlighted what I had written about before on several occasions, and that was about how the evolution of the goalkeeper will involve them coming further and further out of their goal area to join the play.

If we really think about it, a lot of the current GAA goalkeepers have either past outfield experience or currently play outfield for their club. So, it is only natural that their development would involve coming out to join open play.

For the sceptic I would say get used to it because after seeing this any good manager that has a goalkeeper capable to performing some outfield duties will now – if not already – be coming up with some form of plan to include their ’keeper in open play. If they don’t, they should be!

I know it is already being coached in several places. I encourage the teams I am with, and indeed coach it to ’keepers myself whenever I am training them. BBC co-commentator Marty Clarke stated in the 42nd minute that, ‘we are going to see more and more of this.’

In 2019, I was with a team that had a goalkeeper who was a converted midfielder, so he was experienced in carrying the ball.

We devised a plan on how we would use their previous outfield skills and encouraged him to join the play in certain situations. If the defenders were getting it tight coming out of defence, he had license to help his defence by trying to create overlaps to get the ball up the field.

We also encouraged him to come out with balls that dropped short into his hands but to pick and choose when he had a sufficient gap to drive into. If there was not a gap to drive into or if teams didn’t back off, he was to create an overlap. This tactic worked well and the goalkeeper added another string to his bow giving him a new dimension in terms of his game.

Whenever our goalkeeper would go up field, we had our full-back drop back into goal to cover him. This was because he had previous goalkeeping experience so was familiar with playing the position and, as such, was the natural choice to drop into goal.

Once per fortnight, the full-back line would complete training with the goalkeepers so that we could teach them the basics regarding dealing with attackers, communicating with the defence and make them feel more comfortable covering their goalkeeper when he drove up field.

Personally, I loved seeing both keepers playing outfield. I knew it was coming and was not surprised to see it happening, but I didn’t think we would see a game with two attacking ’keepers to the extent we saw on Saturday for another few years yet.

When we were growing up, we used to play last man back, and whenever we were in possession of the ball we would come out and join the play. I have seen some articles referring to this style of goalkeeping as the ‘sweeper ’keeper’, but it is more than that as the sweeper ’keeper involves covering the defence and not joining attacks.

What we are now seeing is the next evolution of the goalkeeping position. What we are now seeing is the ‘fly goalie.’

Email: pmgoalkeeping@hotmail.com; Facebook: @MSoG11; Twitter: @MorSchGk.