DRAW BROKE CAMEL’S JACK
Mccaffrey: It just all became a bit much
L A S T y e a r ’ s drawn All- Ireland final ‘ broke’ Jack Mccaffrey and led to him quitting the Dublin panel.
T h e 2 7 - y e a r - o l d stepped away from i n t e r - c o u n t y f ootball earli er t hi s year af t er playing a key role in the side that claimed five- ina- row.
M c C a f f r e y starred for the
Dubs in the 1- 16 to 1- 16 d r aw wit h Ker r y l a s t Sept ember and help ed them to a 1- 18 to 0- 15 win in the replay, making football history in the process.
But the flying wing- back has now opened up about the moment his heart sank after the drawn game.
He told Off The Ball’s Bernard Brogan Podcast: “I think if Dessie ( Farrell) hadn’t have gott en i nvolved I probably would have stepped away earlier.
“D e s s i e ’ s b e e n a n incredible influence on my football career from when I was 12 and once he took over the j ob I was li ke right, surely I can give him a year, give it a good go, and wouldn’t it be cool to finish what we started all that time ago.
“But s omething j ust wasn’t right and it probably wasn’t right since hal f way t hrough the summer last year, when I just felt the fun had gone out of the whole t hi ng really.
“I w a s n’ t l o o ki ng f or - ward to going to training and I ’d s p o ke n i n interviews before about the love I had f or t h e group and stuff, and that was always true, but it kind of suddenly wasn’t really anym o r e , j u s t because of changes in my l i fe as opposed to anywhere else.
“And then I think what broke me was the drawn f inal . You j ust build up everything for this game and it went quite well on a personal level.
“But I remember I was walking over to the ref, I t h o u g h t t h e r e wa s e x t r a - t i me a nd Dav i d
Moran just stuck his hand out to shake my hand and I was like, ‘ we don’t have to do this again, do we?”.
Mccaf f re y, who was working as a junior doctor at the time, added: “I had incredible colleagues at Temple Street who really covered my backside on numerous occasions.
“I was at a clinic on a Thursday afternoon that following week ( after the drawn All- Ireland f i nal) and if I had just said to anyone that I’d got training there would have been no hassle. I was there to learn more than anything at that point and if I ’d said I had training at 7 I would have been told, ‘ off you go’.
“But I j ust ke pt my mouth shut and stayed there until 8 o’clock and I missed training.
“I j ust turned up and t ol d Ji m ( Gavin) I got caught at a clinic, didn’t train and just rolled into next week and thankfully everything went well.
“But I was so drained by that and then I never really got it back.”
Mccaf f re y made t h e decision to call it quits after a league game against Tyrone in February – when he found himself falling asleep during a pre- match talk after a series of night shifts at St Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny.
But he is reluctant to say he has retired for good and isn’t ruling out a return to football at some stage.
“I don’t want to say I ’m retiring. Gaelic football is a hobby, i t ’s something I love, and nobody would be happier than me if I woke up tomorrow and said I ’ve got a bit of a buzz on, I want to play for Dublin again. It’s not there at the moment, that’s not to say it won’t be there again.”