McCaffrey: We’re not far off

Johnny McCaffrey likes his anonymity.

Give him the choice of being a face in the crowd in Dublin or the man about town in Kilkenny and he’ll opt for the metropolis every time.

“Nah, we’re happy enough to be plodding around and not being known,” he smiles. “It’s different down the country and probably not just in Kilkenny but in Limerick and Cork and Tipperary as well. But we’ve grown up like this and it’s normal to us and it doesn’t really affect us.”

An All-Ireland title might change all that but even for a hurling coach like McCaffrey he’s hardly recognised.

The helmet doesn’t help but he doesn’t mind. He’s seen the traction Dublin hurling is gaining.

Even if Anthony Daly’s side fail to live up to expectations in the county and don’t beat Kilkenny, he doesn’t believe it will burst a bubble.

“I don’t think people are going to turn on us too much if it doesn’t go our way. Everyone knows how good Kilkenny are and what they’re capable of doing to any team. All we’re trying to do ourselves is give ourselves the best opportunity to put a big performance in.”

As it is, McCaffrey has plenty to thank Kilkenny for. It was Kilkenny schoolteachers Willie Coogan and John Dermody who coached the minor team that he captained to a Leinster title in 2005. Alongside the Lucan Sarsfields man on that team were four of the side named for Portlaoise this evening — Tomás Brady, Joey Boland, Conor McCormack and Shane Durkin. Ross O’Carroll is also named on the bench.

“They were super lads to have,” recalls McCaffrey of the pair. “They were young, they were only in their mid 20s.

“We could relate to them, they knew hurling inside out. We were lucky enough at Lucan then to have them for four or five years. They’ve a wealth of knowledge of the hurling. I suppose being from Kilkenny it helps.”

Dublin may have had to crawl before they can walk with McCaffrey being pushed back from midfield as an extra defender.

That’s not the story anymore. Dublin are capable of playing any team man-on-man.

“It shows where we’ve come from, from when Anthony took over to where we are now. We think we’re capable of going toe-to-toe with Kilkenny.

“There might be certain stages in the game where you have to do that but I don’t think it’s a thing we’ll do, or we’ll ever do again for a full period of a game for 70 minutes. Sometimes you have to do it or in certain situations like if you’re down to 14, or defending a lead you might have to revert back to that. But we’re at a stage now where we can go 15 on 15 and we’re capable of putting it to any team.”

All-Ireland semi-finalists and Division 1 champions last year but beaten comprehensively by Kilkenny in the Leinster final, there is still doubt about Dublin’s Liam MacCarthy Cup credentials given their relegation from the top-flight this year.

McCaffrey is more assured, though. Even if their win against Laois last day out was their first in competitive fare since last July, he knows the drop to Division 1B wasn’t a true reflection on the team.

“I think we’re not that far off. Our whole year has been based on what we’re going to do in the summer.

“We’re hoping that we can pull everything together that we’ve been doing in the last couple of months and have a good long summer.

“If not we’ll come again and regroup for the qualifiers and make a crack at the All-Ireland.

“We got a taste of what it was like in an All-Ireland semi-final and it’s somewhere we want to get back to and go one step further this year.”

Not making excuses, but Dublin’s focus had this year shifted to later in the year than last season when a league title was a goal.

“I suppose it would be fair to say that,” says McCaffrey. “Obviously we didn’t want to get relegated. We didn’t want to lose any game. We went out to win every game.

“But the big thing we focused on was our performance.

“A lot of times they were quite good in the league bar the first day against Galway.

“We did get a lot out of it as regards blooding a lot of new lads and maybe lads in different positions that maybe hadn’t played there before.”