Dublin and the demons

EVEN in civvies, Barry Cahill has the look of a Dublin footballer.

He strolls into the lobby of the Castleknock Hotel and Country Club in west Dublin, wearing a t-shirt of sky blue and navy. Football has a way of following him around.

“Tea or coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

“On Paul Caffrey’s instructions?”

He laughs. It hasn’t got to that stage. Yet. But Cahill has the appearance of a man fully primed for the Championship. His upper body bears the hallmarks of a rigorous gym regime. Meath represent his and Dublin’s first test this summer. He looks ahead to the renewal of hostilities between the counties.

“We haven’t played them for a couple of years. They had a good league campaign and had the benefit of an extra couple of matches towards the latter stages of the league. They also gave a very good performance against a fancied Kildare team.

“They’ve definitely improved on last year, getting Darren Fay back and another couple of lads in. It’s always tight when Meath play Dublin, so I expect it to be no different this time. They’ll definitely be well up for it.”

Dublin v Meath may now lack the molten intensity it generated in the 1990s, but local rivalries outlive the vicissitudes of individual teams. Besides, he was a Dub before he was a Dublin player, and grew up watching the likes of Mick Lyons and Vinny Murphy do combat (sometimes literally). He was in the crowd for the third Dublin v Meath replay in 1991. He shakes his head at the mention of Kevin Foley’s late winning goal for Meath.

Dublin will start as favourites this time. For the seventh season, Cahill will run out onto Croke Park as a Dublin senior. Hill 16, as ever, will be a heaving bank of sky blue and lusty song and catcalls and beer breath. The thrill of Croker retains its lustre.

“It’s a huge incentive when you’re doing the training in winter. There’s nothing better than running out in front of the Hill when you’re playing with Dublin. It’s a great rush. Not many counties have that kind of experience.”

Not many counties face such consistently high expectations either. Dublin head into the Championship, as always, saddled with the successes and failures of summers past. Last year’s semi-final defeat to Mayo looms largest in the memory.

“We could nearly smell the final. It does still rankle a bit. We were hugely disappointed because we did get in a position to win the game. At seven points up, we looked like we’d comfortably make the final,” he sighs.

Time has drawn some of the sting of that defeat. Still, a seven-point lead in an All-Ireland semi-final is not lightly relinquished. The Dublin panel met up in October to talk about that game, purge its psychological effect.

The pattern of the game’s second half evinced Dublin’s best and worst qualities: a dramatic burst of scoring followed by an equally spectacular slump. “Consistency has let us down in the late stages of games, whether it’s individual players or the team in general. There have been spells where we haven’t been able to maximise our chances and pull away from teams and that’s let us down.”

He knows that, following two successive Leinster Championships, another provincial title would merely be a consolation prize were it not the prelude to All-Ireland success. “We’re not looking further than Meath at the moment but, longer-term, we definitely want to reach an All-Ireland final. Myself and a few of the lads would have three Leinster medals at this stage and we don’t want to be finishing our career with just Leinster honours. The first Leinster medal is always very precious; it’s not something to be sneezed at. But we want that All-Ireland.”

Eleven summers have past since a Dublin team won an All-Ireland. That 1995 win is the county’s only triumph in 24 years. Kevin Heffernan’s teams have cast long shadows on those in their wake. Does the pressure increase as the years fall away? “A lot of Dublin fans would have grown up in the 70s and 80s and would have been used to success. Twelve years is a long time for Dublin not to have been in an All-Ireland final, so hopefully we can put that right.

“The pressure that comes with playing for Dublin can either lift you up or weigh you down. A lot of the players in the squad are very strong individuals and they get energised by it.”

Cahill encounters more football talk than most Dublin players. He is in the sportswear business. Work takes him around GAA clubs in Dublin, Meath and Kildare. He takes the odd slagging from clients in Meath and Kildare. Meath especially.

“You do get a lot of talk. Even people outside the county, they all seem to have an opinion on the Dublin team. So it’s hard to get away from.”

But there’s upsides. Football’s good for business. Being his own boss dovetails neatly with the time football demands: training, matches, gym work, trips to the physio.

The latter he became all too acquainted with in 2003 and 2004. He was training with Dublin one evening in the summer of 2003, shortly after their Leinster Championship defeat to Laois. He pulled up. Something was seriously wrong. Cruciate.

Things would get worse. “My club St Brigid’s won the Dublin Championship that year. It’s the only time the club has ever won it. It was very bad timing from that point of view, watching the lads playing matches.

“You need a lot of motivation coming back from a cruciate injury. You do 90% of the work on your own. I know other lads who have done their cruciate and haven’t put in enough effort to come back. They’ve either re-done the injury or haven’t been the same player again. Fortunately, I was able to come back.”

The determination that saw him back is now harnessed in the cause of winning the prize that has eluded the county for over a decade. The third Sunday in September?

“Hopefully I’ll be running out into Croke Park. We’ve been working on this since two weeks after the Mayo game, when lads were getting back into the gym. Hopefully we can realise that dream this year.”