Jason Forde: Schoolboy prodigy, senior perseverance, and All-Star form
THERE’S A STORY from Jason Forde’s schooldays which underlines the shatterproof self-belief and prodigious talent that have seen him reach his peak form at 31.
Back in 2012, the Silvermines star was due to play the biggest game of his young hurling life, a Harty Cup quarter-final against local rivals Thurles CBS. The evening before that derby clash, he rang up one of the coaches. What followed wasn’t so much a discussion as an alert from their mild-mannered captain.
Nenagh CBS manager Donach O’Donnell takes up the story.
“He rang Niall Quigley the night before the Thurles game to tell him, listen, I’m going to take my frees off the left side tomorrow, just in case you’re wondering what’s going on.
He was that comfortable shooting off both sides, and he just felt, when he was practising, he was more comfortable with it. I mean, it’s a phenomenal feat really.
“The coach rang me, we were discussing it, a bit worried about it, but look, if he feels he can do it, let him off.”
It wasn’t as if his free-taking had been a problem. Indeed, Forde takes them off his right to this day. The frees he slotted down the stretch against Kilkenny from either sideline were all struck off his right. His 1-5 total was mined from six shots.
They could’ve as easily been taken off his left. In that Thurles CBS encounter, he struck 1-14 between the drawn game and replay.
He stuck with the citóg approach for the remainder of the campaign.
The semi-final against champions Ardscoil Rís also went to a second day, with Forde scoring 1-17 across those games. In the replay, he accounted for 1-10 of their 1-11 total, including a spectacular stoppage-time winner.
They lost the Harty final to the Coláiste na nDéise combination, but Forde scored 14 of Nenagh’s 17 points to defeat St Kieran’s in the Croke Cup semi-final.
Forde was taken down by illness before the final against Kilkenny CBS. If he wasn’t moving with his usual energy at centre-forward, he turned the game when switched inside, burying two goals and laying on a third for Nenagh’s All-Ireland breakthrough.
He actually wore the No 6 jersey for that campaign. It was a legacy from his origins, starting off hurling with a small, rural club. Forde was often cast into the centre-back slot for maximum effect. That was where he first caught the eye.
He hurled there for Tipperary underage sides up to minor level, before slowly moving upfield. Nenagh left him in that jersey to take the pressure off his shoulders.
After defeating Galway last month, Forde spoke about the vitality passed on by the youthful exuberance of Darragh McCarthy, Sam O’Farrell and Oisín O’Donoghue.
“They’ve no baggage. They just love hurling, love training, and we’re all feeding off that energy,” he told RTÉ.
In many ways, McCarthy has mirrored Forde’s rise. Where Forde captained the CBS to their Croke Cup breakthrough, McCarthy came along to lead them to a historic Harty Cup after four final defeats.
“I think he sees Darragh McCarthy particularly as the young fella who’s followed in his footsteps,” says O’Donnell, who guided both through their school years.
“They were both captains of successful CBS teams, they’re both good leaders, free-takers, top scorers most of the time. I’d say he sees that in Darragh.
“And Jason was like that when he was back in school. He never had a hurley out of his hand. He was permanently tipping away after training, before training, and on his own as well. Darragh was very much like that too.
“They both really wanted it. They really, really pushed other guys around them as well.
They understood that for the team to be successful, other guys had to come with them, play their part, and improve. They both drove that mentality, that work ethic.”
There was never any questioning his hurling, right from the days when he finished as runner-up in the national Féile na nGael skills final to Shane Dowling. Nor his drive, having led Silvermines to a Munster Intermediate title while still aged 18.
But Forde’s rise from those schooldays wasn’t all plain sailing. Not that it was ever going to be easy to infiltrate an attack where Eoin Kelly and Lar Corbett were passing the baton onto Séamus Callanan and Noel McGrath.
He captained the county minors and U21s, but despite some remarkable scoring returns, Tony Kelly’s Clare knocked them out every year from 2010 to 2014 en route to five successive Munsters and three All-Irelands across those grades.
Eamon O’Shea named Forde to start for his championship debut against an O’Donnell-coached Limerick side in 2013, but illness scuppered that reunion.
Forde appeared off the bench for their infamous Nowlan Park elimination, but had to wait two more years for that first championship start to come around again.
When it did, he bagged 1-3 in a statement performance against Limerick in 2015. He also scored off the bench in the 2014 drawn final and 2016 victory.
There were other tough days too, mainly in semi-finals against Galway. He was taken off at half-time in 2015 and came on as a sub in 2017, only to be removed before the finish.
In the latter year, a harsh one-match suspension when Davy Fitzgerald entered the field during a league semi-final cost Forde his place in Tipp’s championship opener.
“I was probably at the lowest I was ever at after 2017,” Forde would reflect.
“I got brought on and taken off in the same game, that wasn’t easy to deal with.
If I was to go back in 2018, I knew there was no point in going back to do the same thing — you’d only end up with the same result.”
He took up personal training in the off-season, and that lit a fire to complete a strength and conditioning diploma at Setanta College, over the road from Semple Stadium. During a career break from his teaching post at Nenagh College, he launched a new business, JF Performance, in January 2023.
Asked if he was looking to mirror other gym owners, TJ Reid and Andy Moran, who excelled well into their 30s, Forde replied: “You’d be hoping so.”
When Séamus Callanan missed the league in 2018, Forde grabbed his opportunity with both hands.
Filled with confidence from a second Fitzgibbon Cup with UL and installed as the focal point of the attack at full-forward, he blasted 7-72 across seven games; an average of 1-10 per match.
Forde scored 2-11 in the semi-final against Limerick and 2-12 in the final defeat to Kilkenny. He finished April as GAA/GPA Player of the Month.
He carried that form into championship, scoring 3-39 in four games, but Tipp didn’t win any as they dropped out of the Munster round-robin. When his first All-Star nomination came, Forde was the only Premier hurler on the shortlist.
Liam Sheedy kept Forde as his free-taker in 2019 as the Premier won their second All-Ireland in four seasons.
Forde landed 0-7 from play in a remarkable Munster final defeat to Limerick in 2021, earning his third All-Star nomination.
If there’s a sense that Forde is overdue an All-Star for his talent, he could be on the cusp of reaching that milestone. While Cork are favourites, Forde is Tipp’s front-runner for Hurler of the Year honours.
As per Gaelic Statsman on X, Forde has converted 80% of his shots at the posts in 2025, the highest of the inside forwards on either side this year. His tally of 3-44 from 59 shots includes 3-14 from play.
In an era where shooting from a sideline cut has fallen out of fashion as the low-percentage play, Forde has slotted all four from four attempts this summer.
His flicked goal against Kilkenny was the reward for all those years of pucking around before and after training, as he came up trumps in those championship moments.
In a final against Cork, they once again need Forde to be at his efficient best. Tipp know they can count on him.
Check out the latest episode of The42′s GAA Weekly podcast here
The 42
