Dillon finally wins fitness race

It’s with no shortage of relief or sense of clarity that Alan Dillon can now speak of his fitness.

Last year, it was as touchy a subject as it was touch and go. Struggling with osteitis and a rectus abdominis tear, he was constantly playing catch-up — only “managing”, as he puts it — and no amount of rehab could fix him.

Corrective surgery performed by Meath great Gerry McEntee last November meant a six month lay-off, missing the entirety of the National League, although he came on as a substitute in New York on the May Bank Holiday Sunday feeling better than he has done for quite some time.

“Now I’m confident to say that I’m training at the maximum, at the 100% level where you are out of control and you can get to that uncomfortable phase in training.

“Last year there was always that doubt that you could go past your normal threshold. Training this year has gone very well, especially over the last couple of weeks.”

There were no thoughts of retirement. This may well be his 13th season. He may well be 31 but so what? “I needed for myself to know that I’m good to go here, all guns blazing. This is something I’ve done all my life,” said Dillon.

“I wasn’t going to just throw the towel in and I’m retiring, I’m finishing. It never crossed my mind.

“That’s the way I feel now. Training is going very well. We’ve got one of the best coaches in Ireland there (Donie Buckley).

“The S&C (strength and conditioning) coach. They’re all at the top of their game.

“There’s a good vibe in the camp and it’s been like that since we started back in January.”

Mayo’s analysis of another sobering September is not for public consumption, he says. “It’s something we have left in-house, and don’t need to discuss with anyone else.”

Although he does agree the defeat to Dublin was more difficult for the likes of him, in the context of it being his fourth All-Ireland final defeat.

“But what can you do? You can’t turn the clock back. You can just say to yourself, ‘okay, keep going’.

“At some stage we will get that 70-minute winning performance. It starts Sunday. Every step for us is in order to play at your max for 70 minutes. What we did in ‘04 and ‘06 is redundant.

“The information from those games will help us perform and play well.”

The call by James Horan to call up Dillon’s former minor team-mate, the former Connacht Ireland rugby player Gavin Duffy, to the panel last month has caused quite the stir but inside the camp, Duffy’s been taken in as one of their own.

“I wouldn’t say he’s a manufactured footballer, he has natural ability,” says Dillon. “If you compare him to different footballers, he’s similar to some of our current lads. He’s not a million miles off. It will take time to feel comfortable in that environment and playing with that intensity.

“From speaking to him, the big thing he notices is the quickness on the turn of the feet, that type of stuff. It’s just the intensity of the game and where it’s gone from when he was 18 or 19. He’s come to grips with it, the five-a-side games, the crossfield games, the simulated games — he’s learning every time.”

Right now, Duffy’s brain is being picked by his new team-mates. “Lads would bounce ideas off him. Try and dissect what he was doing at professional level, like how Ireland did in 2011 in the (Rugby) World Cup. How did they react to this and that type of stuff. It’s not like he gives open presentations and that type of stuff. It’s an internal thing. He’s an addition.”

What’s certain is he won’t be the answer to the seemingly perennial marquee forward question thrown at Mayo, a growing bugbear in the camp.

“Stats will show that we can convert chances and we have done it in the past 24 months. There’s no real inner problem, it’s just a matter of getting the combinations right.

“James has looked at that again this year and I’m sure he’ll freshen things up. It’s something that’s portrayed out there and it doesn’t make for any difference. We just have to work on our game and skills, and it’ll come right.”

Having the likes of Dillon and his Ballintubber club-mate Cillian O’Connor fully fit this season might just ensure that. “Last year we probably had two or three of us who were just coming back at the wrong time where we were carrying knocks and maybe we mightn’t have been 100%. It’s about getting to a stage where you can say everyone is really peaking.”