Australian could become Roscommon Football star
Michael Dufficy, the Australian born son of a former Roscommon footballer Ollie, has moved base from Melbourne to Tulsk in an attempt to achieve his dream.
The 24-year old is reversing the trend of Gaelic players heading to Australia and Roscommon manager John Evans believes Dufficy can make the grade.
Dufficy is on the books of the Northern Blues Australian Rules team – a feeder club of the Carlton Blues – but has decided to try his hand at competitive Gaelic football.
A 20 minute debut last weekend for Roscommon against IT Sligo in the FBD League brought Dufficy’s goal one step closer to reality and according to manager Evans, he is making quite an impact in the county.
“What his capacity is I just couldn’t answer yet. It would be unfair to quantify. At different times we think he is not going to make it. Next thing he goes through a week where he blows you away and you think ‘God where has that come from’. We had been looking at parentage of lads for the last two years and that’s how the contact was made. When we looked at the DVDs of him playing we knew we had a good athlete there, he could catch and kick and run and tackle. We said we would take a chance on him anyway. He has proved very, very successful,” said Evans.
He is not a total greenhorn though. Dufficy has played Gaelic football up to minor level in his home club and after moving to Ireland he featured at full forward for Tulsk in their recent O’Gara Cup victory.
“His levels of fitness, his application levels in any of the drills or tests we do he is either first or second. He is young and he has a huge capacity for learning. You have to explain things for him but he is taking things in.
“He has been looking at Gaelic football since he was a toddler and he has been playing it since he was young. He gave Australian Rules a go, but thought he’d love a right go at Gaelic football. So we will see what he can do.”
