Conveniently located in Leo’s constituency
I wouldn’t say he goes near tyrellstown. Plenty of big GAFFS in hollystown mind.
Raised on songs and stories
I remember being in the canal end for the replay last year and being happy that Dublin had won.
I remember walking through mountjoy square and seeing the delight of the locals and being happy Dublin had won.
I remember walking on Marlborough St and seeing that sack of wind and shite Curtis and being so pissed off that Dublin had won.
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I love the story he tells about Jim visiting his mam in the hospice last year, and she told him to bring Dermo back, Jim said if he comes back, you’ll be the first to know.
The morning after the Super 8 win against Cork, just as the Dermo story was about to break, Jim went back to the hospice to tell Roy’s mam the news first.
How twee.
Actually, TNH more than likely
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What’s the story with the relationship between mccaffrey and Jim gavin? Gas the way he dropped in the story about skipping training in the off the ball interview. He says if Dessie didn’t take over he’d have quit as well.
But he did quit after Dessie took over.
Probably just felt at the time he owed it to Dessie after coming up along through the underage with him as manager whereas he had enough done for Jim Gavin
He has taken a break. He did it before.
Fair fucks to him
He can do as he likes. Its good to see a lad able to look both ways through the bubble.
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There was a discussion on news talk earlier on a article Denis Walsh wrote on Dublin hurling . Did anyone read it ??
Dublin hurlers have resources to match footballers — it’s in the mind that they fall short
Denis Walsh
Sunday January 03 2021, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Times
For a fleeting moment, in the late spring of 2011, the Dublin hurlers held a reputational edge. They trounced Kilkenny to win the League final, their first title in 72 years, a week after Dublin had collapsed against Cork in the football final, scoring just twice in the last half an hour. Cork were the reigning All-Ireland champions, but Dublin had led by eight points, until their flakiness under pressure was exposed again.
A couple of weeks later the hurling League trophy was paraded at a meet-and-greet event in Palmerstown, where players from both Dublin panels mingled with supporters. The hurling team didn’t have a mass following, but, for once, they had mainstream appeal. Ryan O’Dwyer, the former Dublin hurler, remembers meeting supporters that day whose feelings for the footballers had cooled, beyond exasperation or easy forgiveness.
“‘Ye’ll win an All-Ireland before the footballers. They’re fecking useless.’ That’s the kind of thing we were hearing,” says O’Dwyer. “And that wasn’t an isolated incident. That was the general public, that’s what people were saying.”
Those forecasts perished, as you know. Four months later, Dublin won their first football All-Ireland in 16 years, launching a decade of dominance the like of which the GAA had never seen. And the hurlers? They had one more really good season and a handful of other years when their ambitions were valid and unfulfilled.
In all of that there was an interesting anomaly. As the arguments about Dublin’s competitive advantages became hotter and more intractable, the hurlers were never mentioned. Dublin’s massive population, their unique attractiveness to commercial partners and their hotly contested chunk of central funding, were only ever touted as game-changers for the footballers. Not the hurlers.
If, for argument’s sake, all of those factors were so critical to the success of the footballers, why has that magic potion not worked for the hurlers? Was it because the playing numbers were wildly different? Not especially. In comparative terms, only Cork has a greater population of adult club footballers than Dublin and only Cork and Tipperary can boast more adult club hurlers. In theory, at least, the raw material to be successful existed for Dublin’s hurlers too.
So, were they treated differently? Were they given fewer resources? Over the last ten years, no. Before that? One retired player says that, 15 years ago, the footballers, “were treated like royalty”, even though they weren’t even contesting All-Ireland finals. Around that time the hurlers were in a rut. Did they feel second class? “Ah yeah, 100 per cent,” says John McCaffrey, the former Dublin captain, whose 12 year career started in 2006. “But I suppose the hurlers hadn’t had any success. We hadn’t come near competing in a Leinster final, never mind winning one. We were in Division Two [in the League].
“As the Dalo [Anthony Daly] era picked up, from 2011, 2012, we got what we asked for. He would have had to fight tooth and nail at the time to get it, I suppose, but the results helped justify whatever he was looking for.”
According to O’Dwyer, who joined the panel in 2011, the hurlers lacked none of the necessary supports for high performance. Everything from training camps abroad to gear and gyms and grub: all of the things that money could buy were provided. In 11 of the last 12 years the hurlers have had an outside coach, involving costs that were never associated with running the football team. That outlay was met too.
The only significant difference, for many years, was the absence of a fixed training base. Under Pat Gilroy, more than ten years ago, the Dublin footballers put down roots in DCU. During that time Daly was going around “begging” for pitches; one of their regular haunts had no dressing rooms.
The Dublin hurlers have struggled to match the feats of the footballers
The Dublin hurlers have struggled to match the feats of the footballers
INPHO
When Ger Cunningham succeeded Daly the hurlers finally gained access to a pitch in DCU, which they shared with the Dublin camogie team and Ladies footballers, and others — though not the footballers, whose training pitch was ring-fenced for their use only. One year, says McCaffrey, the surface was so exhausted that the hurlers trained on a rugby pitch nearby. But he wouldn’t say that any of that was an impediment.
As the footballers became more successful, some of the spin-offs landed in the hurlers’ laps too: a free suit every year from Jack and Jones, a monthly €30 discount voucher from Gourmet Parlour. The county board had an annual deal with Mitsubishi for a small fleet of sponsored cars, and they were divided between both panels. None of these perks had anything to do with elite performance, but at least the hurlers couldn’t claim to have been shortchanged.
“We were probably a bit embarrassed that we were piggy-backing on the footballers’ success,” says one former player. “Getting things we shouldn’t be getting, or didn’t deserve. Cars and suits and all this crack. It’s great, but you should be winning All-Irelands before you’re offered those things.”
One of the things that money couldn’t buy, though, was the culture around the squad. That had nothing to do with generous sponsors or excessive funding, but it was a key point of difference between one team and the other. Gilroy established a culture in his time with the footballers that nourished all the teams that followed; the culture that Daly worked so hard to build with the hurlers, though, hadn’t the same durability.
“Dublin hurling wasn’t used to success,” says O’Dwyer, “and when a bit of success came, that went to our heads a little bit. Complacency set in. There were lads who probably didn’t feel threatened for their place and were just taking things for granted.
“There were an awful lot of lads who would train away in November, December and January and then drop themselves off the panel — work was getting in the way or they couldn’t commit. Instead of organizing their lives around hurling, they were trying to organize hurling to suit their lives. There was that softness there. That all comes from the culture. Players didn’t hold each other accountable. They were nearly too friendly with each other and afraid to hurt each other’s feelings. Whereas, with the footballers, no complacency was allowed.”
At various times over the past decade Dublin produced young players who were brilliant at both codes. The hurlers lost most of those custody battles. Imagine how different the last decade might have been if Ciaran Kilkenny or Con O’Callaghan had chosen the hurlers instead? Or Cormac Costello, or Eric Lowndes?
How likely was it, though? Even when the Dublin footballers were losing, it was where the glamour resided. The footballers had the capacity to suck players in, and make them wait. The hurlers didn’t have that magnetism.
“You might get a fella that will go in for a year,” says McCaffrey. “If he’s not getting his game after a year, he’ll leave. Whereas, with the footballers, you could have a fella in there for three or four years, without getting much game time at all, but they’re willing to put that time in. It’s probably the environment that they’re in, that they’re willing to stay around — because it’s a tough thing to do.
“At the end of the day, it’s the hurling side that has to get their act together.”
Is that a resources issue? No. And for the footballers, is it money that makes the difference? Do you really believe that?
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a good read
it references the huge number of adult hurlers in Dublin
There are nine divisions in the league with circa 12 teams in each division, the reality is about half of those leagues are junior divisions and recreational leagues as such , teams full of country lads looking to play a game of hurling but a million miles away from inter county standard
A good succinct appraisal of the situation there. The top 4/5 Dublin club teams would fit comfortably into any club championship in the country and be very competitive. The next 3/4 would stay up senior. The problem is beneath that. I think there are 16 Senior A clubs in total. No 15 + 16 wouldn’t come within in asses roar of winning a junior championship in Tipp, KK or Cork.
As you said there are about 10 leagues of about 12/14 teams. Beneath division 3 the standard is worse than bad junior B in Tipp. On the positive side it is really social hurling that gives a physical fitness outlet to many.
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ah yeah Fat_Fox , I am far from knocking the lower leagues - a great outlet for so many. very well ran actually, fixtures ran off as per beginning of year fixture list
Still hurling in Division 7 myself!!!
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Ah the lower leagues are great. I’m 38 this year. I’d probably struggle to make the 2nd team back home now. I’ll comfortably tip away in the lower leagues up here for a few more years. Playing a match or a handy training session is far more enjoyable than going off running, swimming or gymming or my own. I’ll continue to do it as long as the body allows.
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