PHILIP LANIGAN: The inside story on TJ Reid’s shock departure from Kilkenny and where the Cats legend ranks in my TOP FIVE modern hurling forwards

Friday night and the All-Stars are in full swing. 

The RDS is packed, everybody in the room is suited and booted, and the live cameras are rolling.  

When Joanne Cantwell breaks away from the expected script, it feels like the RTE host is delivering a public service announcement. And, in a way, she is.

Even in the middle of a live broadcast celebrating the best hurlers and footballers in the country, the news of one player’s retirement feels like the biggest headline of the night.

 TJ Reid’s 20-year career with Kilkenny is over. The game’s all-time championship scorer won’t be adding to his record total of 43 goals and 672 points (801 points in total).

Just five days earlier, the player himself indicated he was open to continuing on under new Kilkenny manager Henry Shefflin in 2027. 

When Ballyhale Shamrocks won the county title, it was his 13th county medal, to go with six Leinsters and six All-Irelands with the club.

So the shock in the room, and for those watching on television around the country, was real.

Some would have seen the news posted by Reid on his social media accounts just a few hours earlier. 

Or caught wind of the official statement that then dropped via the Kilkenny county board.

But the general feeling was still of hurling fans the country over being stunned. Almost instantly, it raised a whole host of questions.

Was it all his own decision, especially given the abrupt turnaround and timing on the night of the All-Stars?

Was he Kilkenny’s greatest forward? And if not, who was better?

And how would this leave the county senior hurling team after a summer in which they failed for the first time to make the top three in the six-team Leinster group and qualify for the All-Ireland series?

On Monday morning, Reid met various members of the media at Nowlan Park to try and fill in some gaps. 

A 25-minute sit down with Oisin Langan of KCLR made for a fascinating listen. The mood was reflective, the player himself clearly still trying to process it all.

‘There’s never a right time or the wrong time,’ insisted someone who turns 39 in eight days’ time.

In another interview, he insisted he was blindsided by the question around his future with Kilkenny after he said straight after the county final: ‘Obviously you want to play forever, so you do. I’ll try my best to do that… If there’s a panel picked and I’m called for it, I’ll be there.’

He said he was sitting on Sunday evening in Andy’s bar in Ballyhale and decided this is the group he wanted to share another ‘four or five years’ with.

‘We’re very much a very ambitious dressing room and for me at the moment, they’re the best. It’s the best dressing room that I can fulfil the next four or five years – and that wasn’t with Kilkenny.’

 Now Ballyhale are only starting their provincial club campaign. They have a Leinster quarter-final against Laois champions The Harps today (2pm throw-in at O’Moore Park in Portlaoise). 

From the outside, there’s a logic in waiting until the end of the club campaign and seeing how body and mind feel then.

Unless a conversation was had in the meantime. It’s no secret that Shefflin is drawing up his Kilkenny panel for 2027 right now.

Three Fridays earlier, a modern goalkeeping great in Eoin Murphy announced his own retirement. T

he word is Shefflin, quite understandably, is undertaking a rebuild that could well have a three-to-four-year timeframe. It’s only natural to join the dots.

‘I wasn’t going to be there in four years, I wish I was, I’m not Superman or Batman,’ said Reid in a moment of levity on KCLR.

‘You’re better than those two, you’re TJ Reid,’ joked Langan.

‘Batman and Superman can’t hit the ball over the bar so they can’t,’ replied Reid, hopping the ball back.

Interestingly, his brother Richie, 33, is believed to be part of that panel.

But TJ was so honest in describing the pain of the breach with the black and amber.

‘I called a family meeting on Wednesday and that was difficult, that was just my wife and kids and my father and brothers and that was the toughest… I suppose it’s like a funeral, three days of mourning and then at four o’clock the coffin was buried.

‘So look, it was tough. Friday, I gave myself a deadline at four o’clock and that was the hardest five minutes of my life, one of the hardest things I did. 

‘And after five minutes, I put on my wellies, got my hurley, got my ball, went up to the farm, beat the ball off the wall for an hour, came down, opened up a bottle of champagne and a cheeseboard with myself and Niamh and the family and I was at peace.’

His own man, til the end.

The greatest? It feels almost blasphemous trying to put a sorting hat on Kilkenny’s attacking wizards.

Eddie Keher was the original all-time championship scorer for the county, his talent and profile such that it felt only natural that he linked up with Muhammad Ali for a famous photoshoot when ‘The Greatest’ was in Dublin for his fight with Al ‘Blue’ Lewis at Croke Park in 1972.

DJ Carey was the most thrilling and explosive, the one who could lift the crowd off their seats with a solo run or sublime strike.

Ten All-Irelands puts Shefflin out on his own as far as Celtic Crosses go. The King. Three-time Hurler of the Year and 11-time All-Star. Brian Cody’s on-field lieutenant during the county’s Golden Era. No underage prodigy but a player who willed himself to greatness. 

That the same small rural club of Ballyhale Shamrocks could produce Shefflin – and Reid – is truly remarkable.

So why Reid as the greatest? 

His aerial prowess and ability to win primary possession from a puckout or general play – gold dust for any team. 

In 2018, he sent an online Christmas greeting to his legion of fans, a photograph of him leaping so high his studs are at hip height of those around him, right gloved hand outstretched, ready to make the catch. 

His former manager Michael Walsh recalled a league quarter-final the same year against Offaly, when he turned the tide almost single-handedly.

‘Do you know under-14 and there is one fella head and shoulders above everyone else? He caught ball after ball after ball. Did the business and got Kilkenny over the line.’

He dealt with adversity too in a senior jersey. It was his friend and confidante Shefflin that convinced him not to pack it in in 2012 when dropped for the All-Ireland quarter-final against Limerick and not fully trusted by Cody.

By 2015, he was Hurler of the Year. Their leader in attack.

His speed of thought on the ball was like that of a supercomputer, able to play out all the various scenarios in a split second and make the correct choice. 

The dummy handpass and swivel the other way became a trademark. Always moving, turning, head-up, ready to bring others into play. 

To be in that flow state that all the best players and athletes chase. His vision and selflessness with the ball made him the ultimate teammate. 

In the 2018 championship, at a time when he was Kilkenny’s best finisher, the go-to strike forward, he had the highest rate of shot assists.

A fortnight ago in the county final, he set up Ballyhale’s second goal by shovelling the ball out to Jake Mullen for the young star to take the confidence boost of finding the net.

Then there was the purity of his ball striking, his deadball striking, the highlights reel of sideline cuts and frees. 

No other player in the game can arrow the ball over the bar in the same way with that drilled low flight. It all happened for a reason.

 ‘We have a fob to the gym and the day before every league game, every championship game, I come here for an hour to visualise the arena, to be in the gym, I’d be out then and I’d probably take 100 frees before every game.’

Not wanting anyone to join him and puck balls back because this was his private ritual. 

Which also involved the ritual of weekend mass. He talked of gratification, prayers, stillness… moments in Church that can be channelled into moments on the field in front of 82,000.

Or for club. Like that free to beat St Thomas’ with the last puck of the game in the 2022 All-Ireland club semi-final. 

Eight bodies in a direct line between where he struck the ball – from a tight angle on the right outside the 20-metre line – to find the net. ‘Dochreidte!’ as Brian Tyers said on the TG4 commentary. Somehow, he made the unbelievable believable.

It turned out that he had soaked the bas of his hurley in a bucket of water the night before to give the wood a bit more weight and feel.

From this reporter’s point of view, Reid was a joy to watch and always an absolute gent to deal with. 

There were many afternoons at Nowlan and beyond when he made work a pleasure and a privilege. It certainly felt that way to be up close and witness sporting greatness at first hand.

Staying humble and grounded throughout all the success was another signature, the seven All-Irelands, 14 Leinsters and five National Leagues just the tip of the iceberg in terms of medals and awards.

If there was a touch of Ali and ‘I am the greatest’ to his own verdict – ‘for me, no other player in the country did or was doing what I’m currently doing right now’ – he could say it because it rang true.

He built up his own business, TJ Reid Health and Fitness, through that dedication to high performance. In that sphere, it’s not about being coy.

What he did during the pandemic too was admirable. Running free online classes via live stream – a mix of coaching and fitness – provided an outlet for thousands of kids and more the country over, and even further afield.

As he put it of his expanding gym enterprise which has led him to work with CEOs in the whole field of high performance, ‘I suppose I lived it and now I can teach it.’

At Portlaoise this afternoon, expect a stampede of young fans in his direction at the final whistle. He’s learned to line them up to put order on the chaos and to make sure he gets to each and every one.

It could be a long line.

TOP FIVE FORWARDS OF THE 21st CENTURY 

1. TJ Reid (Kilkenny)

High catching, scoring, free-taking, tackling, vision – Reid has it all. So versatile can play in any forward position, and is just as comfortable around the middle third. 20 years with Kilkenny a testament to his longevity. And not done yet with Ballyhale.

2. Henry Shefflin (Kilkenny)

‘King Henry’, for good reason. The only player to win Hurler of the Year three times – the third, in 2012, came after a cruciate injury which says everything about his determination. Like Reid, worked so hard to develop himself into a leader on the field who lived for the big moments. A big game player who was ultra consistent too with his club.

3. Eoin Kelly (Tipperary)

Talked about in the same God-like fashion in Tipperary as Nicky English and it feels fitting that both ended with six All-Stars. An inspiring captain who drove his county to stop Kilkenny’s five-in-a-row in 2010. Blessed with a dynamite strike. 

4. Joe Canning (Galway)

The ultimate underage prodigy who lived up to all the hype, with Portumna and with Galway. One of the purest ball-strikers of his generation, his 2-12 against Cork at Semple in 2008 set an impossibly high bar. Nine years later he was instrumental in Galway’s first All-Ireland win in 29 years.

5. Patrick Horgan (Cork)

Having long passed Christy Ring as Cork’s all-time championship scorer, a failure to land an All-Ireland doesn’t diminish his contribution. Boast incredible wrists – that clutch point in the 2013 final against Clare looked like the winner. Has a YouTube reel of jaw-dropping scores, the goal on his knees against Kilkenny at Croker just one example. And still going, aged 38, with Glen Rovers.