Incredible rise of the Dubs’ latest sensation
O’Callaghan is the product of superb coaching process
‘HE FITTED IN NOISELESSLY SINCE DIARMUID CONNOLLY’S SUSPENSION’
THOSE convinced that Dublin are the beneficiaries of a rigged system will doubtless be familiar with what Con O’Callaghan has achieved in the past year. Since the start of last October, he has won three All-Ireland medals, in senior football, Under 21 football and club hurling; he has enjoyed provincial wins at club hurling and U21 levels, and a senior football one; and he claimed a county hurling championship with Cuala.
Within a matter of weeks, he will have added Young Footballer of the Year, and the expectation is a second senior football championship medal will be his by teatime next Sunday, too.
O’Callaghan is not the face of a dysfunctional Championship, though. Whatever the problems assailing the game of football – and they exist, as the hopeless Leinster and Munster Football Championships show – the progress and achievements of this young man from south Dublin are not attributable to the system.
They rely more on his extravagant talents but also on the coaching processes instituted in Dublin over the past decade. He is living proof of the astonishing advances the county has made since the meagre days of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Funding has facilitated the structures in which the youngster has developed, that is true, but his tender career is a tribute to coaching and passion as well. Too often, Dublin’s knockers overlook those prosaic contributors to improvement.
Early in the summer of last year, when he was still a mere prospect, O’Callaghan was honoured with a player-of-the-month award. At the event where he was presented with his prize, he was asked about the endless winter into which he and the other machine-built monsters in blue were plunging Gaelic games.
The question was not framed quite so apocalyptically, but the sentiments were similar.
‘We just train on a normal club pitch,’ said O’Callaghan. ‘We don’t have anything special. We just train in Innisfails (a club in the north of the county) with the seniors, and wherever we could get with the 21s, it was St Anne’s (in the south of the county), DCU, it was nothing major.
‘We trained in a normal gym. People say a lot, but I don’t think we have any special advantages.’
He was on uncertain ground with the last point, but his story is not one of spoon-fed privilege. It is about talent complemented by hard work, a combination familiar to supporters of Dublin in the age of Jim Gavin.
The terrific goal he got against Tyrone was identifiable, even at the time of his scoring it, as a hinge moment in the match. After Niall Sludden was turned over, Ciarán Kilkenny kicked to O’Callaghan 50 metres out.
Two right-footed soloes took the Cuala forward to the edge of the D, where he moved on to his left to leave Ronan McNamee hopelessly sidestepped. He then bounced the ball with his left hand before he realigned himself to smash in a goal off his right.
The incident has been studied mainly for two purposes: to expose the speed of Dublin’s counterattacking; and to illustrate the inadequacy of the Tyrone defensive plan when they lose the ball.
Heralded as O’Callaghan has been in this, his breakthrough summer, his goal has not received as much attention as it might. But the clarity he displayed from receiving the ball was striking: this was a 21year-old starting his fifth senior Championship match, but he attacked as if he knew exactly what would eventuate.
It was not the only maturity apparent from him this season, and composure has been one of the distinguishing features of his game.
In the All-Ireland U21 final victory against Galway, he played not as if he was Dublin’s star man – which he was – but as another part of a hardworking system. He scored Dublin’s first goal but also kicked over a late penalty for a point. His team had the game won and were under no pressure to chase 50-50 opportunities, so he took the easy score.
His leadership was notable after what had happened in the semifinal, when he was sent off for an off-the-ball tangle after four minutes of the win against Donegal. It was a rare misstep by a player whose form across two codes has been outstanding for over a year.
His role in Cuala’s hurling club victory on St Patrick’s Day delayed his advancement into the county football team, but it has always been when, not if, on that topic. Last November, as the club were burrowed deep into the club championship and preparing for a Leinster final, O’Callaghan was on duty speaking as a Cuala hurler, but the context of wider interest was Dublin football. ‘As I said, I’m focusing completely on the hurling for the moment,’ he said, in that disarmingly neutral way of the modern young GAA star.
‘In terms of next year, I’d love to push on in terms of experience. I didn’t get much League time last year but hopefully I can build on what I did last year.
‘Everyone on the panel will have ambitions to play and start for the team. Hopefully I can build on the small things I’ve done this year and push on for next year.’
As it transpired, Cuala’s adventures meant he did not get immersed in Dublin’s League battle, concerning himself with the Under 21 campaign on his return to football.
Although he was a panellist in last year’s All-Ireland-winning squad, he was incidental to Dublin retaining the Sam Maguire. He was one of the talents being cultivated by Gavin that people mentioned when speculating on how much better Dublin could become.
He made his Championship debut as a substitute against Laois last year, but it wasn’t until Dublin opened their summer campaign this year in Carlow that he started his first match.
O’Callaghan was, in common with more established team-mates, bottled up that day, but it was significant that when Dean Rock was substituted, it was the youngster who took the frees, converting two.
This was despite Bernard Brogan being on the pitch by then, too. It seemed like a subtle shift between generations at the time, a feeling that has been confirmed as the Championship unspooled.
The 21-year-old has started every match so far, the highlight his goal against Tyrone but the most sustained evidence of his talent coming in the Leinster final. He kicked 0-12 against Kildare, including six points from frees after Rock received an early black card.
Brogan was excellent in that contest after replacing Rock and he accounted for five points, all from play, but O’Callaghan was established by then, thanks in part to the suspension Diarmuid Connolly brought on himself in Carlow.
With Connolly gone, he has fitted noiselessly into the centre half-forward groove, to the point that when the older man replaced him in time added on in the semi-final, it was a moment of symbolism rather than sporting relevance. The match was long won by that point, and Gavin looked to be displaying his team’s resources.
When the game had to be won, though, it was O’Callaghan that was trusted, and that should obtain in the final, too.
In three months he has gone from prospect to pivot, the star of Dublin’s coming times.