Casey’s rise into the senior

IT will only be when this year ends for Paul Casey, that he will be able to sit back and absorb all he has achieved.

Casey has been having the sort of year, moving at such break neck speed, that bypasses people. Cold reflection will be needed before he fully recognises this as the seminal season of his career.

In this his first year as a Dublin senior, he is clutching a Leinster medal to go along with the Leinster under 21 medal he won earlier in the season. Stands as a definition as dream debut year. The Leinster senior medal is some prize, when Casey celebrated with his team mates after squeezing past Kildare, he noticed that there were some players waiting six long barren years.

“I suppose I was lucky, to come into the team and win a Leinster medal so soon. It has been a great year, but we don’t want it to end yet. We want to get by Armagh on Sunday.

“We know it’s not going to be easy. Armagh have been there in three of the last four All-Ireland semi-finals. They are an experienced team and they will want to make it to the final stage.”

To an outsider, Casey’s rise into the senior ranks has been astonishing, given that he has just turned 21. Yet, it seems to slide in seamlessly as part of Tommy Lyons’ great plan. When Lyons took the command post in the capital, he also decided to oversee the progress of the under 21s. Hence, Casey, Alan Brogan, Darren Magee, Stephen Cluxton and Barry Cahill all graduated onto the senior team.

Lyons wasn’t afraid to gamble on youth, and the youngsters have repaid him in kind. Cluxton looks set to become a custodian in the great Dublin tradition of Cullen and O’Leary, Brogan has the talent and swagger to become a star for the next decade, Magee has flourished alongside Ciaran Whelan in the middle.

Casey, meanwhile, has been consistent throughout the championship. At right wing back, he has had to face the likes of Evan Kelly and Christy Toye, but clipped each player’s influence in their respective games. And, easy to forget now, but it was Casey who flung his body in the way of a Wexford shot at the start of the summer to deny Wexford an unlikely victory which would have killed the capital hype before it started.

The respect for the manager who had so much faith in his young half back is obvious when Casey speaks. “Tommy has just been an incredible influence. Before we go out onto the field, he makes everyone so relaxed and confident in their own ability.

“He has every confidence in us which is translated onto the players and that makes us more confident. It is so easy to go out and play when you are relaxed and when you have a manager who bolsters your confidence like that. Everyone wants to play for a manager like Tommy.”

Casey always had sporting pedigree. His father had played with the Kerry minors before he moved to Dublin, while his mother is from a strong hurling family in Kilkenny. Casey was destined to be a GAA player, but for a while, it was a question of which code. Under the watchful gaze of youth coaches at Lucan Sarsfields, he followed in the footsteps of his brother, Micheal, and became a footballer.

Despite his relative youthfulness, Casey has grown in his role as Dublin footballer this summer and the responsibilities that go with it. Talking to the media has nearly became second nature to him at these press nights, “ as long as we talk about football, I don’t care,” Casey says. “This team likes it football to do most of the talking and I hope we will do so again on Sunday.”