John Commins (hurler)

Commins played his club hurling with his local Gort club. He had some success at underage levels. He won a Senior County championship medal in 1983, and won the Connaught club medal the same year.

Commins first came to prominence as an inter-county hurler on Galway's minor team in the early 1980s. He won an All-Ireland medal in 1983[2] and quickly graduated onto the under-21 side where he won another All-Ireland medal in 1986. That same year Commins made his debut as goalkeeper on the senior hurling team, with Galway reaching their second consecutive All-Ireland final. In the game against Cork Commins ran the length of the pitch to score a 21-yard free, however, victory still went to the Munster champions. In 1987, in their third All-Ireland final appearance in-a-row, Galway took on Kilkenny. At the third time of asking Galway emerged victorious and Commins finally captured his first All-Ireland medal.

In 1988 Tipperary were Galway's opponents in their fourth consecutive All-Ireland final appearance. Commins had another solid performance as goalkeeper and claimed his second All-Ireland title in the process, before later winning his first All-Star award.[3] In 1989 Commins began the year by winning his first National Hurling League title, however, Galway's star centre-back, Tony Keady, was banned from playing for a year. The side had contemplated withdrawing from the championship in protest, however, they decided to play, eventually losing out to Tipp in the All-Ireland semi-final. Commins received "man of the match" for this performance.

In 1990 Commins played in his fourth All-Ireland final in five seasons. Galway were the hot favourites to beat Cork and it looked as if that prediction would come true when the tribesmen went 7 points up. Cork scored 4 goals in the second half and Commins was the scapegoat for the 5-15 to 2-21 defeat and was dropped from the Galway team for the 1991 championship. At the age of just 25 years Commins’s inter-county hurling career had drawn to a close.