Retirements

[Premier Emperor]

I thought gleeson had been out of it a few years.

No one noticed.    His career petered out after all the early hype.

[marty34]

I always thought Gleeson never fulfilled his potential. I'm surprised he ever released a statement.


Great player as HOTY X 2 in 2016. I think only TK has ever done this. And you look at how the two moved on into their full senior careers.


I'd always thought his best position would be as a No. 6. But with De Búrca in there, Gleeson was moved from pillar to post and that never helped him in the long term.


Never mind his fantastic semi-final goal V Cork, I loved the point V Cork (iirc) where he slide in on the ground, tapped the sliotar to himself with a deft flick , swivelled and over the bar.
 
Best wishes to him in the future. 

[imtommygunn]

You have to hand it to him though... As capable of moments of genius as you would have seen. Discipline and consistency would have let him down but a highlights reel would be as good as you would see for anyone.

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/2026/09/21/austin-gleesons-brilliance-was-irresistibly-attractive-but-he-never-became-a-true-great/

Remember his championship debut? A month before his 19th birthday he scored 1-2 against Cork. One of the points was from a sideline cut but the goal was from the realm of fantasy. He gathered the ball on Cork's 65, surfed a high tackle and another challenge, wrong-footed two Cork defenders and kept driving towards the Cork parallelogram. He hit the ball off the hurley, off his left, on the run, with five Cork defenders flailing in his wake.

It wasn't just the skill to execute the shot, but the audacity to imagine a goal. Nobody else on the pitch or in the stadium would have seen that possibility. "Marty, that is one of the best goals you will ever see in Semple Stadium," said Michael Duignan on RTÉ's commentary.

Three years later, in an All-Ireland semi-final against Cork, he scored one of the best goals you will ever see in Croke Park. This time the run started on the 45m line and at least five Cork defenders were identified at the scene but were helpless to intervene. It was a glorious symphony of balance and power and athleticism and silkiness. The final touch to the net was played with deliberate softness, underhand, like something at the net in tennis.

Waterford's Austin Gleeson scores a goal against Cork in the 2017 All-Ireland semi-final. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho

The bolts of lightning from Gleeson's career are the stuff of social media clips. His brilliance was irresistibly attractive. When he scored that goal against Cork in 2017, he was wearing number six, but I couldn't tell you where he was playing. During his Waterford career he lined up everywhere from number five to number 14, but the number on his back didn't amount to co-ordinates on the positional grid.

Licences for all-out individualism are rare in the modern game, but Gleeson was granted one. Any attempt to limit him would have been reckless and pointless. The modern game is beholden to structure and percentages, but Gleeson was unburdened by that. He was liable to take on speculative shots from crazy distances and not be disheartened by his strike rate or deterred. He was cavalier.

But players with great talent do not always become great players. Gleeson never quite squared that circle. There was always tension between the angels and devils in his game, and his discipline was liable to crack. When he was sent off against Cork in the 2022 championship it was the 10th dismissal of his adult career. He should have been sent off in the 2015 All-Ireland quarter-final and the 2017 All-Ireland semi-final too.

[ Michael O'Neill has no right to assume Ceadach O'Neill's bloodline – and neither do weOpens in new window ]

He was once sent off for Mount Sion in a club championship match just a couple of minutes after the throw-in. The red card was overturned on appeal, but a week later he was sent off again, this time on a double yellow. That kind of impetuosity never left him.

Gleeson spoke last week about not looking after his body well enough during his career. In later years, fitness became an escalating issue. When he first started playing for Waterford underage teams, and for more than half of his schools career with De La Salle, he played in goal and there were reasons for that which only made sense at the time.

Waterford's Austin Gleeson dejected after the 2017 All-Ireland final. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho

"I was too lazy really," he said years ago, "and I wasn't the skinniest of children. You could say I was fond of a burger."

In recent years, he would put on weight in the off-season and struggle to shed it. The gym was never his natural habitat and conditioning became a recurring issue. The law of diminishing returns took a grip.

Along with Tony Kelly, Gleeson remains the only player to have won Hurler of the Year and Young Hurler of the Year in the same season. Their careers, though, followed different paths. Kelly's career has been defined by the difference he has made in big games, and for how long. Longevity is intrinsic to greatness too. By those metrics, Gleeson's career came up short.

But he illuminated the game. The best of him was an everlasting wonder