McCaffrey confident as Dublin learn to lose the fear factor

‘Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it’, said the great 18th century Irish philosopher, Edmond Burke. His words have obviously been taken to heart by another Dubliner, hurler Johnny McCaffrey.

In 2011, Dublin seemed on the cusp of greatness, a first national title since 1939 when mighty Kilkenny were toppled in the Allianz League final. Then came 2012, stumbling through a winless league, relegated after a heavy replay loss to Galway, then tumbled out of the Leinster championship (another heavy defeat, this one against Kilkenny), tumbled out of the All-Ireland series two weeks later when going down to 14-man Clare in Ennis.

McCaffrey and Dublin could have decided to simply forget all that, pretend it all hadn’t happened and just face forward. Or they could look back and learn. They decided on the latter, after the Ennis loss especially. “It took a good few months, a lot of soul searching. We met in September to try and trash out a few things.”