Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
KILLING YIELDS
Carthy reveals secret of Dublin’s success
FORMER Dublin star Shane Carthy says the secret of their five-in-a-row success was the ‘killings’ dished out in their A versus B matches.
St Vincent’s man Carthy, an All-ireland medallist in 2016 who came on in the League f in al d efeat of Galw ay in 2018, said those training games under Jim Gavin were tougher than most Championship matches.
The midfielder told the Boston GAA podcast: “What Jim Gavin does so well is he creates that environment of high performance that it’s next man up.
“No one’s position is safe. Everyone needs to be coming down to training looking to kill the other guy and the best man gets the jersey.
“I remember playing a lot of A versus B games. One particular time, I think it was before the Leinster final, might have been 2016 or 2017, and he (Gavin) said, ‘ This is the Leinster final here, these are the two best teams in Leinster’, talking about Dublin A and Dublin B, in an internal house game.
“The killings that would be involved in those games, it would be ferocious.
“They would nearly be more i ntense than the Championship games up until the semi-final or the final of that year.
“That was th e making and breaking of the Dublin team.” Carthy spent the summer of 2018 in the US and won a Boston championship with the local Donegal club alongside Vincent’s and Dublin colleague Diarmuid Connolly (inset). Carthy added: “Diarmuid is this kind of character that just needs a challenge. If we were going out tomorrow, whatever it is, playing golf and I could be beating him for 17 holes and if it comes to the last and we say,
‘Right, winner t a ke s a l l h e re’ ,
Diarmuid is going to do everything he can, he’ll pipe one down the fairway. He’s just that sort of character that when the pressure is on, he rises to another level.
“I’d be trying to give an eight out of 10 every week whereas Diarmuid might be two or three out of 10 but then if it’s an All-ireland final or a county final, you just give him a little, ‘Right, let’s go, let’s see it now’ and that’s when the real class shines through.”