High-calibre Andrews gave Dublin ‘added value’
After crushing disappointment, retiring forward would win seven All-Irelands, starting five finals
PADDY ANDREWS was just out of surgery when Jim Gavin made his way through the parade traffic to visit him in the Mater Hospital on St Patrick’s Day 2019. The previous evening, Andrews’ jaw had been broken in a collision with Tyrone goalkeeper Niall Morgan during a sparky National League game in Croke Park.
The operation involved the insertion of two metal plates, with Andrews’ surgeon prescribing 10 weeks of physical inactivity.
It was a cruel setback.
Three days later, much to Gavin’s bemusement, Andrews turned up to Innisfails’ grounds in Clongriffin, the facility situated just off the Malahide Road where Dublin conduct their winter/spring training regimen.
His jaw was wired shut. Andrews was barely able to speak, much less partake in the session.
But he was there nonetheless. “I mean, I don’t know what he was doing there,” Gavin admitted, practically brimming with admiration, “but that’s just the calibre of the man.”
The following Sunday, seven days on from surgery, Andrews travelled with the squad to Kingspan Breffni Park for Dublin’s last game of a curious league campaign.
Along with a couple of other non-playing members of the Dublin panel that day, he sat at the end of the long, wooden press box in Breffni Park with the Dublin analysis team.
Equipped with pen and clipboard, he studied the game, collated data, feeding trends and other statistical nuggets to selector Declan Darcy who, in turn, filtered the information and relayed anything pertinent back to the Dublin bench via radio mic. Unable to eat anything more solid than yoghurt and smoothies in the initial weeks after surgery, Andrews lost 7kg.
He couldn’t risk physical contact for over two months and as a precaution wore a bespoke gum shield on his return to playing football in late May during a challenge game against Cork.
But all through his lay-off, Andrews went out of his way to make himself of some – any – basic use to the squad.
‘Adding value’ has become one of the clichés of the Dublin footballers, management and players using the phrase so regularly in interviews.
So long as any individual can ‘add value’ to their bid to win another
All-Ireland, their place in the group is reserved.
The obvious way to do that is by performing in games, influencing results. But there are others.
In his autobiography, The Hill, Bernard Brogan recalled how during the summer of 2019, he had noticed how Paul Mannion’s movement was limiting his ability to generate scoring chances for himself.
“He’s just sitting on the wing, watching the ball, waiting for it to be popped back out,” Brogan wrote. “He needs to be less stationary, more dynamic.”
One evening in the ‘The Bunker’ in St Clare’s, DCU, Dublin’s summer training base, Brogan plonked himself down beside Mannion.
Brandishing a laptop, he proceeded to play clips demonstrating Mannion’s less-than-optimal positioning, stressing the merits of making runs along the 21-yard line.
At that stage, Brogan had never been further away from the Dublin starting 15. Mannion, meanwhile, was on his way to a third consecutive All-Star.
But as Brogan explained, one of
The loss of a strong personality will be felt . . . particularly a player whose career story had such a redemptive theme
the cultural tenets of the group was nobody being “above being coached by a team-mate, just as you’re not above coaching one”.
The scene-setter for another chapter is Kevin McMamanon and Michael Darragh Macauley conducting a visualisation session the night before the 2019 All-Ireland semi-final with Mayo.
McManamon, a qualified sports psychologist, sourced a recording of the crowd noise and the entrance music the Dublin team would hear as they came out through the tunnel, before he read a thoughtfully-written script.
McManamon didn’t get off the bench the following day. But his influence on Dublin’s preparations had been significant, if widely unknown until the publication of Brogan’s book. There are other examples.
In late 2011, Mick Fitzsimons pleaded with Tomás Quinn to delay his retirement for a year, such was Quinn’s ability to mimic the movement and shooting habits of the game’s best inside forwards in training drills and internal matches.
Last September, Darren Daly went from the squad with minimal fuss. He’d been incidental to Dublin’s starting 15 over the previous two years.
Yet his weight of influence was recognised by Dessie Farrell, who immediately recruited Daly as a selector.
Yesterday’s announcement of Andrews’ retirement was expected. He hadn’t played a minute of championship football since the 2019 semi-final against Mayo.
Loss
But the loss of a strong personality will be felt by the group, particularly a player whose career story had such a redemptive theme.
Having endured the crushing disappointment of being dropped by Pat Gilroy just months before the championship of 2011, Andrews went on to win seven All-Ireland medals, starting in five finals.
The expectation is he won’t be alone in calling it quits.
A different generation of players are leading Dublin into a new decade. Some natural erosion is inevitable. Time moves on.
Given the diminished game-time experienced by some of the most important Dublin players of the last decade, it’s possible that there could be up to 30 fewer All-Ireland medals in the dressing-room by the time the 2021 season starts.
Should that come to pass, Dublin will lose something far more valuable than the Celtic Crosses those players acquired with such remarkable regularity.