‘Dublin set-up is the exact same as every other county’
BY his own admission, Philly McMahon isn’t the most informed when it comes to GAA history, but in the context of what’s going to come between now and Dublin’s tilt at five in-a-row, maybe that’s a good thing.
Still, he knows enough to realise it’s a question he’s going to have to field between now and the end of their championship campaign in 2019. Before long, he’ll be fully briefed on five in-a-row and all the historical context it carries.
In fact, it’s started already.
“I was at a charity event last week. And if I had a euro for every time someone said five-in-a-row to me we would have fund raised a lot of money,” McMahon smiled.
“It’s just another year I suppose for us. I’m not much of historian of the GAA so it doesn’t really impact me that much. I have things to work on from last year and the year before so that’s what I’ll be thinking about in 2019.”
The All-Ireland final earlier this month bookended another successful season and propelled him ever further into the stratosphere of the game’s most decorated players.
And while it looked like Dublin’s most comprehensive All-Ireland win of the six since 2011, it was the most difficult for McMahon on a personal level, as he combined his football with his father’s battle with cancer, which he lost earlier this year.
“I think the last two years I have struggled physically and psycholog- ically,” he offered. “So that was hard todealwith.
“It was a massive experience and all I could do really was my best. Whether that showed on the pitch is anybody’s perception of performance, but for me it was good and bad.
“I had some really good games and I was happy and other games where I just did my job, did enough and I think ultimately that’s where I was trying to get to the last two years – to get to the stage where I do my job.”
While the majority of the post All-Ireland final discourse centred around this Dublin team’s greatness, the issue around the level of funding afforded to GAA in the capital was raised.
McMahon points out that in the context of the current panel, funding means little.
“Let me give you a quick synopsis of the money I received from Dublin GAA. From a very young age, I picked up a football because my brother was messing about on the blocks. There was no money in that.
Parents
“I kicked a ball off the flats. In primary school because I was able to kick a ball I played in the mini leagues. Then Paddy Christie came along and brought me up to Ballymun Kickhams, trained me for countless hours. My parents brought me to training.
“I actually don’t know where… If you talk about expenses we get the same as everyone else, and probably less because we don’t have to travel that far. I don’t see where the money is going, for me. And I guarantee you if you went into any county set-up the resources are probably very similar. You’ll have a strength and condition- ing coach, a nutritionist, a psychologist, a medical team, a tactical team.
“Just go through Stephen Cluxton’s speech and ask other county teams have they got that? Because they have. There is very little difference.
“And for me, it’s a distraction for other counties. If other counties buy into this, it’s a distraction. There will be a negativity that will feed into their young kids in their clubs when they should be showing them that this is the way sport is, you have to battle, to fight, you have to train hard and do the things.
“And fall in love with the fight and not the victory. Because if you look for excuses you’ll constantly look to cheat your way to make it easier in certain terms.
“For us, I don’t know where I have benefitted, apart from the resources we get from our management team that most other counties have.”
It’s an argument that there seems to be little in the way of middle ground. People are either anti-Dublin zealots or blind to significant difference in funding.
When it was suggested to McMahon that Dublin have so far not had to invest in infrastructure such as centres of excellence and a county ground, and as such have the means to put coaches into clubs, he insists their success comes down to people
rather than money.
And that in cases like his, it was volunteers like Paddy Christie that made all the difference.
“Who is to say a centre of excellence wins you All-Irelands? We don’t have one and we are winning All-Irelands. We have a pitch and Alan Brogan did a piece on it, we have a pitch and a training room. We train in Innisfails in the winter, it’s a normal club.
“Who is to say that because you have a centre you are going to win All-Irelands? It’s the people that win All Irelands. It’s the people that took the decision when it took us 16 years to win it – ‘Look, things have to change here, let’s put an infrastructure in that the clubs have GPOs and that we are giving the clubs better development’. It’s a no-brainer, it’s just a no-brainer.”
It’s an argument that will run and run and will likely return with vengeance if Dublin mark out their own little piece of history and win five on the bounce next September. Still, it shouldn’t interfere with the legacy of this great team whenever they come to write their final chapter.
Excitement is already building around the city. Sightings of Rory O’Carroll and Diarmuid Connolly have talk of 2019 buzzing.
“Would I like them in there (with Dublin)? I certainly would. I met Rory last week actually, I’m doing work in Mountjoy (prison) and I brought Rory in for a visit. He’s a social worker and he was working in the prison services in New Zealand. I’m not sure of his full story but I think he might be going back over so I’m not sure. But they are two players I’d like to see back in the changing room.”
For now, McMahon will just keep striving to improve.
“I had a lot of baggage the last two years with my dad’s illness so I have to learn how to deal with that. There’s little things behind the scenes I need to get better at. There’s always things you can improve on. Life’s about not being perfect but improving, especially as a sportsperson.”