Pillar’s Dubs aim to reclaim past glories

IF anyone can appreciate how deep the Dublin-Kerry rivalry runs it is Paul Caffrey.

Brought up as one of seven siblings above a shop on Dorset Street in the 1970s, the Dublin manager lived literally a stone’s throw from Croke Park.

He was there when Kevin Heffernan’s team ended an 11-year search for Sam in 1974 and, by the time the green and gold crossed their paths the following year under Mick O’Dwyer, he was well and truly a foot solider of Heffo’s Army.

Great days, great memories but, as the current boss said yesterday, he won’t be sitting down to watch a rerun of the ‘77 semi-final any time soon.

Immersed in the history of it he might be, but interested in it he certainly isn’t. Not right now.

“Just thinking back to those days — six All-Ireland finals in a row — we thought it was going to be like this for life, winning three of them. For our dressing room now there’s a lot of young guys there and it means nothing to them. History is history and we’re trying to create our own piece.

“There will be a great build-up in terms of nostalgia and people talking about past games but the relevance to us is nil. There’s no All-Ireland champions in ‘07 (yet) but there are four teams left in it. We all have aspirations, claims, desires, wants and we’re one of those four.

“So, yeah, it’s great for those who remember the six All-Ireland finals in a row and the ‘77 semi-final, but we also remember the ‘84 and ‘85 games too and we don’t crow about them.”

That ‘77 encounter — widely talked of as being the greatest game played — stands as the last occasion Dublin won a championship encounter against their nemesis. Caffrey isn’t bothered by such statistics — or last weekend’s performances.

“It’s very important that we in Dublin — and I’m sure the three other teams — look forward and not back. Of course, you’re looking for areas where you didn’t play well and could have done better. There’s lots of areas that we could have done better but there’s also lots of areas that we are very happy with.

“We’ll be working hard on all those areas on the training field over the next two weeks. We’re eagerly looking forward to the semi-final and I’m particularly looking forward to this Dublin team playing well in the semi-final.”

Unlike last year, where they stepped up the challenge of Mayo after an all-too easy passage, Dublin have so far been tested by every opponent bar Offaly in the Leinster semi-final and Caffrey admits that will stand to them.

The double-header against Meath, in particular, has served them well, he believes although doubts persist. The emergence of Bernard Brogan and Mark Vaughan has silenced critics of Dublin’s attacking capabilities but the spotlight has merely switched to their defence. Though they were far more impressive against Derry than Kerry were against Monaghan, Dublin again displayed a brittleness by allowing Paddy Crozier’s side back into contention thanks to a poor final ten minutes.

Caffrey bats away such suggestions and he was unusually bullish yesterday about his team’s chances of playing an active part in the final.

“What I do know is that this Dublin team has trained and prepared very, very hard. They are in a good place and we did expect to be back in a semi-final. We are there and we expect two more games this year. The players and management expect us to play very well on August 26.”

The intensity of their training is, he says, “a sight to behold” and they approach the business end of the campaign with a clean bill of health, something Caffrey puts down to the team’s physical conditioning but to luck as well.

He tells a tale of one training session where Barry Cahill jumped up unopposed for a ball and tore his cruciate ligaments after twisting his knee and he realises misfortune could strike again.

“You have to take the luck when you have it. You could be five minutes into an All-Ireland semi-final and you could get a bad injury to one of your main players that changes things. These guys have really applied themselves well to the strength and conditioning work that they’ve done — and it’s not just over a period or one or two years, this goes back a number of years.

“A lot of them would be nearly at the peak this year, strength and conditioning-wise.”