O’Callaghan lights blue touchpaper as new generation of stars burns bright
DUBLIN’S dominance is not simply about resources and financial might. That is only a small part. Blood-lines are a more significant element to this story. Take the two heroes of last weekend, Dean Rock and James McCarthy, players who grew up knowing that their fathers were once icons of Hill 16.
The torch is passed carefully from one generation to the next within the capital. There are second-generation stars dotted across Jim Gavin’s side. Con O’Callaghan’s father Maurice wore the sky blue shirt in the 1980s on the same side as Jack McCaffrey’s dad, Noel. Those players were nurtured on tales of their exploits while, at the same time, being indoctrinated into the Dublin way.
‘Yeah, he would have liked to talk about himself a little bit, alright,’ O’Callaghan said with a smile during the week when he was asked about his father’s time with Dublin. ‘He came on in the 1984 final. They lost to Kerry. I saw the video a couple of times, he was coming on and fouling lads. It was a different game back then.’
Different game, perhaps, but the passion and spirit remain the same. Maurice O’Callaghan coached both Con and Cian, his older brother, in Cuala. Passing the flame to the next generation.
There’s also the part that Mayo have played in Dublin’s dominance. And it is not a supporting role. A great team needs a proper rival, a genuine threat to its supremacy, to make it even better. Manchester United in the late 1990s and early 2000s had Arsenal. Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona had Bayern Munich and Real Madrid. Larry Byrd’s Boston Celtics had Magic’s LA Lakers. Micko’s Kerry had Heffo’s heroes. And Jim Gavin’s Dublin have Mayo.
It may be scant consolation in the west over the winter, but O’Callaghan accepts that Mayo have led his own team to reach for even higher standards.
‘They have definitely driven our own standards up because Mayo are as good as it gets,’ the Cuala man says. ‘It is heartbreaking for them, they have performed so well in the past couple of years, drawing or losing by a point. A huge amount of credit has to go to them and the challenge they have posed every match.’
O’Callaghan only knows Stephen Coen, a college-mate in UCD, personally out of the Mayo panel and while he does have a degree of sympathy for what the county have endured over the past few summers, losing four All-Ireland finals, three of them by a point, he says that it is just the way of top-level sport.
‘I was talking to Stephen for a few minutes afterwards. He was very gracious in defeat. It was tough for them to take but when you play sport at the highest level, that is what can happen. If they keep knocking, they might get a bit of luck. We might have got that luck over the past couple of years and that helped us win and maybe they were a bit unlucky.’
Dublin’s three-in-a-row is also about coaching. The best coaching. It is shown in Paul Mannion’s improvement in his tackling technique this year. It is seen in O’Callaghan’s ability to sniff out a goal chance. Caution is often preached from an early age. Take your points. But the coaches of a young O’Callaghan saw in his goal-scoring instinct something to be nurtured and nourished — both in football and hurling.
The result was the two exceptional goals that were seen in the All-Ireland final and semifinal. ‘I was always told to go for goal, whenever I got the chance,’ says the prospective Young Footballer of the Year. ‘If it is on, go for it. If it is not, take your point. That is what you should do as a forward. My first instinct is to go for goal. That’s the way I always was.’
Whatever one feels about the persona that Jim Gavin projects in the media, he has hammered into the players that they shouldn’t forget where they come from. On Thursday, as he did a gig for Sky Sports in Abbotstown, O’Callaghan spoke about going back to Cuala next week.
‘It is humbling to go back to the club. It is good to go back. The hurlers are lads that I have won the All-Ireland with, so it is good to go back with them and defend it and the footballers are in the quarter-finals for the first time in a while, so there is an ambition there, too. There is a good buzz around the club.’
He hopes to bring the Sam Maguire to Cuala in the next couple of weeks and fire the ambition of the next generation. When Dublin and Mayo began this fantastic and fascinating AllIreland final rivalry, back in 2013, Con O’Callaghan was on the Hill, cheering Bernard Brogan and Paul Flynn on.
Four years later, he is centrestage, a sign of how seamlessly the conveyor belt is moving in Dublin. Resources and finances may have something to do with it, but not all of it. Everything from family ties to the presence of a great rival has created this threein-a-row.
And listening to O’Callaghan, there should be no question marks about Dublin’s hunger and desire. Here is the 21-year-old Monkstown native speaking about how he can find motivation after six months that saw him collect a Celtic Cross, an AllIreland club hurling medal and All-Ireland Under-21 football title.
‘Winning makes you want to win more,’ O’Callaghan proclaims. ‘You are never satisfied once you start winning. If you lose, you want to get back there but once you start winning, you just want to keep winning. Once you have that title and lift the cup up, it is up for grabs again next year.’
Words that could have fallen from Jim Gavin’s mouth. And omnious words for Dublin’s rivals next year.
I was told to always try and go for goal whenever I got the chance