Return to starting berth a priority for Dublin's Scully

ORIORITIES: Dublin footballer Niall Scully poses for a portrait during a promotional launch event for the Dioralyte O’Byrne Cup final. Pic: Sam Barnes, Sportsfile

At the beginning of the National League, Niall Scully is laying out his targets for the year.

Becoming a regular starter again for Dublin is the priority for the former All-Star and he would also like to up his scoring rate if possible.

If neither of those work out, and if boss Dessie Farrell sees him as more of an impact sub again, then it'll be about providing the biggest impact possible when he does come on.

The bottom line for the five-time All-Ireland winner, who turns 30 in April, is that he's as hungry as ever for the challenge of the new season.

He's slightly ahead of schedule too as, along with All-Star Colm Basquel, he took part in the Dioraltye O'Byrne Cup which Dublin reached the final of with a largely developmental panel.

"The key thing for me is I'd love to be starting again," said Scully who was agonisingly benched for last season's All-Ireland final win over Kerry. 

"And if I'm not, well I'd love to be coming in. It's always a conversation with the management about how they see where you can best impact the team. Whether that's from a starting position or whether it's coming on, that's kind of where you want to progress to."

Scully appears to be in a strong position to start tomorrow evening's National League opener against Monaghan at Croke Park.

Aside from playing pre-season games against Wexford and Longford, fellow attackers Dean Rock and Ryan Basquel have retired while manager Farrell has indicated that a number of established stars will be phased back in over the course of the campaign.

Scully scored 1-1 against Wexford in the O'Byrne Cup semi-final and another point in last weekend's final loss to Longford and says scoring more is a target of his.

"Throughout my career, I probably wouldn't have been a regular scorer, I wouldn't have been scoring 1-5 a game, or five points a game," said the Templeogue man. 

"Even last year, trying to add scores to my game was something I was trying to do. Now obviously I didn't do it but again, definitely this year, it's going to be something that I will be aiming towards."

Scully was a virtual ever present in Championship lineups from his breakthrough season of 2017 right through to 2021 but only started one game in the 2022 Championship. He made six starts in a row last summer before being left out of the team for the final though came on in the narrow win.

"You could be dwelling on it for 24 hours and thinking about it but next thing you know then the All-Ireland is in your face so I didn't make a big deal out of it, I didn't have concerns like that," said Scully. "And if I didn't come on, the main thing at the time was that we got over the line against Kerry."

Tomorrow's league opener will be a repeat of last year's All-Ireland semi-final. From Scully's perspective, the more significant aspect is that they're back in Division 1 after a season in the second tier.

"As a player, you don't ever want to be leaving Dublin in Division 2," he said. "There's definitely a good enough squad there that belongs in Division 1. Definitely we wouldn't like to be relegated again but the key thing going into the year, the main focus, will still be the performance, testing out new strategies and looking at what we can to kind of better ourselves from last year."

Monaghan will definitely be without veteran forward Conor McManus. The 36-year-old told the BBC's GAA Social podcast that he has just returned to collective training and may not feature until 'the middle of the league, towards the end of the league'.