Out of the limelight, Pillar still tangled up in Blue
Nobody, not Kevin Heffernan nor Pat Gilroy, can claim to have made the Leinster SFC his own like the Na Fianna man did in his four seasons (2005-8).
Not once in that time did the Delaney Cup leave the capital and yet Caffrey’s legacy is pockmarked with depressions, the 2006 All-Ireland semi-final loss to Mayo ranking the lowest just ahead of the one to Kerry the following year.
Cakewalking through June and July only to stumble in August, holes were picked in Caffrey’s Dublin.
His coarse relationship with the media meant honeyed words were few and far between and there was plenty of schadenfreude when things went awry for him.
After defeats, the squad’s pre-match walk to the Hill was ridiculed (it was highlighted by a former Dublin star just last week). Following his departure in 2008, the release of the supposedly secret Blue Book handed out among the panel lifted a lid on the level of detail he and his team put into their preparations.
It also presented an opportunity for some to castigate what was a regime that, while peerless in Leinster, was not so much in the All-Ireland series.
“I would never get into slagging matches, I’m too proud of what Dublin means to me and what previous Dublin teams mean to me,” says Caffrey this week.
“The great thing about the GAA is it’s democratic and everybody has an opinion. That opinion deserves to be aired and listened to but you don’t have to agree with it.
“I’m quite content with the job that myself and the management team made. Forward steps were taken and I stand over everything that happened under my regime.”
Like Armagh in Joe Kernan’s latter years, it was considered Caffrey put too much emphasis on winning the provincial title. He balks at the suggestion. “We looked at where we had been and Dublin had won one All-Ireland title in the previous nine years.
“We set our stall out and said let’s create a dominance of Leinster and give ourselves a platform year after year to launch a real good attack on an All-Ireland. I wouldn’t apologise to anybody for being ruthless in pursuing Leinster titles during my tenure.
“We were absolutely ruthless in trying to pursue an All-Ireland title. Three of the four years I was involved we were beaten (knocked out) by the would-be All-Ireland champions.
“If you come second best in a race like that all you can do is hold your hands up and say you gave it your best shot.”
Kerry in 2007 were one of those, as it proved to be, All-Ireland champions-elect who bested Dublin.
The scoreboard at the end had two points between them but Caffrey refers to it as a one-point game as was the difference in injury-time.
Some famous footage shows Caffrey laughing with Pat O’Shea as Kerry played keep ball in the closing stages before setting up Declan O’Sullivan’s point.
Caffrey was pointing out to his opposite number how his players weren’t able to get the ball back from Kerry. Still, in his mind that was when Dublin were “at their best during my tenure”.
As he explains: “There was a feeling among a lot of the players that we left that Mayo game the previous year behind us. They were fierce easy to motivate that year and their drive was immense. Had we played anybody else I think we would have got over the line but we met a Kerry team that had a lot of good players.
“People underestimate how good they are in controlling a game when it’s in the melting pot. Their patience and ability to control the ball in the last couple of plays — nobody was taking stupid shots, they were just pinging the ball around until they got the perfect opportunity to bang over the killer point.”
Meeting a current Kerry player the day following their semi-final win over Mayo last month, Caffrey got some insight into just how much they wanted to face Dublin on Sunday.
What he confirmed was a lot of things to Caffrey about the relentless Kerry psyche.
“There’ll be a lot of stuff spoke about how hungry Dublin should be or will be but that bulls**t because the hunger in these Kerry fellas will be no different to Kilkenny’s.
“None of them have beaten Dublin in an All-Ireland final and in Kerry that will figure highly on their CV if they win and things are all done and dusted.”
He never got to bring Dublin to the brink of ultimate glory but he takes satisfaction in seeing men who shone under him finally making the breakthrough.
“The hoodoo has been broken now. That’s why anyone who has had a handprint on this group of players, be they club coaches or school coaches, would be thrilled for them.
“We had lost four All-Ireland semi-finals in eight years before the Donegal match and the cumulative total of losing out was five points. That’s savage disappointment for sportsmen of the highest level.
“But there’s no point in getting to an All-Ireland final unless you’re going to win it. Unless Dublin win the All-Ireland... okay we have progressed, but we want to be winning it.”
He’s genuinely delighted for Gilroy. What he wouldn’t give to be where his successor is now but he has his best wishes.
“Pat Gilroy has obviously come in and changed things around and you’d be nothing but thrilled for him, David Hickey and rest of the team there. Some of my group are still there — Gerry Matthews, the goalkeeping coach, Professor Gerry McElvaney the team doctor and Ray Boyne, the main stats man.
“Most of the players there now that were available to us all played at some stage under me and my management team. Under no circumstances would I take credit for what they’re doing now — that’s Pat Gilroy’s gig and all credit to him.
“I’d have a fierce affiliation with all the Dublin teams from the early 70s and now is no different as a supporter again. My kids will be down on the Hill and there’d be nobody happier than Pillar Caffrey if this group can achieve an All-Ireland.
“It’s where everyone wants Dublin to be.”
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