TJ Reid pictured at Croke Park as Centra announced an extension of their sponsorship of the All-Ireland GAA Hurling Senior Championship for another five years. As the longest serving sponsor of the competition, 2025 marks Centra’s 16th year sponsoring the All-Ireland GAA Hurling Senior Championship. Photo credit ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan
By John Harrington
At the age of 37 and preparing for his 18th championship season, the passage of time doesn’t seem to have taken much of a toll on TJ Reid.
The Kilkenny legend is still top of his game, but there’s no doubt that the game around him has changed.
A four-day pre-season training camp in Portugal was certainly something new for Kilkenny who have previously never travelled abroad for one.
And the intensive work done there was certainly a lot more tactical than anything Reid would have experienced in a Kilkenny training session for much of his career.
It’s a testament Reid’s ability that he’s still as relevant as ever to the Kilkenny cause because the game itself has changed significantly over the course of his career.
“Ah sure it has, yeah,” says Reid. “The thinking of the game is gone through the roof, the reading of the game is gone through the roof, and shape and structure. You'd always hear the words, 'stick to the process'.
“Before in my game you had a corner-back, number two, Paul Murphy, strikes up to the other corner-back and he strikes it back down. Then back up. It was a lot easier to play.
“Now you have movement everywhere. You have half-forwards in the full-back line, you have them going laterally across the field, corner forwards might be out midfield if there's a plus one.
“Forwards are dragging defenders out of the way and they're holding the ball and retaining ball. It's completely different, hurling. But the foundations and basics are still there.
“You have to win your own ball still. That's the foundation. If you go away from that that's when you're trying out too much of the possession things. If you get the balance right you'll be in a good position.
“It's all innovation. The same in every sport. Rugby, soccer, it's all changed in the last 10 years which is great. I hope the next 10 years it changes as well. That's how the modern games are.”
TJ Reid of Kilkenny catches a high ball ahead of Robert Downey of Cork during the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship semi-final match between Kilkenny and Cork at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile.
As the game has changed once core skills are no longer as practiced as much and what’s not practiced isn’t mastered.
That’s why Reid’s wizardly under a high ball is even more pronounced now than its ever been simply because there are less players versed in the art of high catching in hurling.
It also makes his ability in the air an even more dangerous weapon than ever because you wouldn’t bet on many defenders to best him under a dropping ball.
“It is (a dangerous weapon),” says Reid. “There's not as much high fielding anymore, no. Because, as I said, goalies are looking for perfection now on their puck-outs and delivering a low trajectory ball into the half-forwards.
“The days of standing under a high ball, there's not as much because we all think now that the guys who have more possessions win games.
“It's a good tool to have for a team, I think. We have top class forwards in Kilkenny who are able to. Our foundation was always built on being able to win your own ball. We still have that. We probably were neglecting the other aspects of the team and maybe we were a little bit slow developing that.
“But I think we're going in the right direction at the moment. Momentum is shifted when you have a guy in the half-forward line who is able to put up his hand and look for a ball and win it. That's what you need in a team.”
Reid is a serious physical specimen but he’s not the tallest man in the world and regularly dominates much bigger men under a high ball. What’s his knack?
“It's timing, it's the flight of the ball, it's the ability to have the awareness of the man beside you,” he says. “It's the ability to go up and climb when the ball is just landing on his head.
“It's a skill, it's an art. Not every player is able to do it. Some players get lost under the ball, they can't read it at all. So, yeah, it's a skill being able to read it because it's tough.
“Obviously if you're standing under a high ball on your own it's grand but when you've a player beside you putting you off or in front of you or tussling with you then you have to read the situation.
“I always found that backs have it a little bit easier because the forward is in front of them.
“It's a little bit harder when you're a forward because you're trying to read the flight of the ball and you have a lad digging you in the back of the head. It's a little bit harder that way. The reading of the game is the most important bit of it.”
TJ Reid of Kilkenny, accompanied by his daughter Harper Reid, aged 2, signs autographs for supporters after the Allianz Hurling League Division 1A match between Kilkenny and Limerick at UPMC Nowlan Park in Kilkenny. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile.
There’s not that much noise about Kilkenny coming into this year’s championship even though they’ve won the last five Leinster championships in a row, reached All-Ireland Finals in 2023 and 2022, and came close to beating eventual champions Clare in last year’s semi-final.
The general consensus seems to be they’re a bit off the standard being set in Munster, a opinion reinforced by the statistic that if they don’t win the Liam MacCarthy Cup this year it’ll be the longest they’ve ever gone without winning the ultimate prize.
Reid knows they have their doubters, but he’s confident they have the ability to go all the way this year.
“Kilkenny, it's 10 years or whatnot, I suppose there's frustration over a number of years about what could have been and if you did X, Y, and Z, different where could we be?
“We were competitive for sure. Obviously on those days we just weren't good enough, simple as. When you win you just need to be the best team on the day.
“For those few occasions we weren't the best team on the day. You can imagine if you got through Clare what could have happened. You don't know, nobody knows. God doesn't even know.
“Our job this year is to be better than we were last year. That's the main thing. If we can be better than last year then who knows where that can take us.
“We have to have confidence in our own ability and where we want to go. In Kilkenny hurling we all have the motivation to win the Liam MacCarthy. You just have to be the best team to do it and we weren't the best team the last number of years. It's our job this year to rectify that and to do one better.”
