Macauley prepared to drag Dubs up hill again

"What’s the chances of the headline being, ‘I want to loaf the rest of my team-mates?"

Those are Michael Darragh Macauley’s words, but they are uttered playfully. As if any such headlines would cause him a jot of discomfort save for the ribbing of his team-mates.

It is vintage Macauley.

A bundle of energy and intent on the pitch, he affects a surfer dude easiness off it. Day wear seems to consist almost singularly of track suits, flip flops and T-shirts. A disarming smile is a constant accessory.

The wisecrack about “loafing a few of the lads” on the Dublin team is simply a tongue-in-cheek reference to a recent such incident in the World Cup when Cameroon’s Benoit Assou-Ekotto dropped the head on team-mate Benjamin Moukandjo. Macauley, in fact, is the last man on Jim Gavin’s Dublin team that you could imagine sowing seeds of unrest. This a guy who brings the team and its supporters together and not just through his actions on the pitch.

Darragh Nelson, his club and county team-mate, made the mistake last summer of letting it slip that he had never stood on Hill 16. Macauley remedied that by dragooning him on to the terrace for the All-Ireland hurling semi-final against Cork.

I thought that was sacrilegious,” said Macauley, “so I dragged him by the ear.”

Macauley was a regular on the association’s most famous piece of sloping concrete before he made it as a player and his vocal cords were stretched again earlier this month when he made the trek to Wexford to watch the hurlers win.

“I didn’t realise how far Wexford Park was,” he laughed. “It was miles away. I thought it was just past Brittas Bay.”

Still, immersing yourself in the hurlers’ efforts is one thing, segregating yourself from the hype of a summer in the capital when the Dubs are on such a role is quite another. Macauley admits it can be difficult at times.

“It’s hard to get away from it. Sometimes you can get bogged down and it can be a bit too much because you’re surrounded by it for 24/7, really, when people are asking you questions and obviously want to find out bits and pieces.”

Like many top sports people, Macauley seems to feel most at ease in his own skin on the field where distractions such as media, well- meaning wells-wishers or his tag as Footballer of the Year melt away into the ether of a Croke Park afternoon.

“I’d almost forgotten I was,” he said of that award. “It doesn’t weigh on me in any way, shape or form. It really doesn’t. I just go on about my business and enjoy my football. As soon as you stop that you’re going to be in trouble.”

This Sunday brings with it another Leinster outing, this time against Wexford, and a reminder of where it all began for Macauley in the blue shirt given the same opposition were on hand when he made his senior debut back in 2010.

Wexford took them to extra-time that day, Macauley appearing off the bench just as he would the next time when Meath put five past them in what remains their only reversal in the province since a loss to Westmeath in 2004.

“If they’d brought me in earlier it wouldn’t have gone to extra-time,” he says jokingly of that Wexford game in 2010. “I remember I was being brought on and it was definitely squeaky bum time.

“It was a great battle but it was a great game to get on in. You don’t want to get on in a 20-point hammering. Our backs were against the wall and I was brought on to make a difference so it was great for me.”

It’s only four years ago but it seems like longer.

Dublin were still looking back to 1995 for their last All-Ireland title at the time. Two have been bagged since and the current generation are adamant they are better prepared to defend their crown than in 2012.

“It’s very tough. You really have to be firing on all cylinders to do this thing. If one person is letting the group down or thinking of last year it’ll pull the whole group down and we won’t be able to perform the way we want to.”

That’s unlikely to be Macauley.