Pat Gilroy, Dublin's decorated waterboy would only do it for Dessie

The All-Ireland winner became an unofficial consigliere to Dublin boss Dessie Farrell

Sat, 27 Jan, 2024 - 07:15

John Fogarty

This weekend 15 years ago, Pat Gilroy took charge of his first season game as Dublin manager. A defeat to the defending All-Ireland champions Tyrone in Croke Park wasn’t the most auspicious start for the new boss but it was the beginning of the revolution.

Of the team that began that game, five started the All-Ireland final win over Kerry two years later. Paddy Andrews and Denis Bastick, who would later revive their inter-county careers, were in the full-back line.

There would be speed bumps along the way, of course. Playing like “startled earwigs” against Kerry later that year. That 17-point thumping initially knocked Gilroy for six. The evening of that All-Ireland quarter-final, so genuinely concerned was one Kerry player for the opposing manager’s well-being that he asked someone to escort him.

The following year, they were hit for five goals by Meath and later worn down by Cork’s incessant powerful running but redemption came in the form of a Stephen Cluxton kick into the Hill and suddenly a county believed. And all the trappings that went with it, like the Spring Series, followed.

In developing the bunker in St Clare’s, Gilroy harked back to the modest galvanised shed in Parnell Park where his St Vincent’s club-mate Kevin Heffernan famously held court. Without a gym, their Glasnevin hub remained humble.

Much as he has long been considered a blueblood being the son of former player Jackie and a friend of Heffo’s, it seemed that John Costello had taken a punt in fast-tracking Gilroy to succeed Paul Caffrey. But his lack of ego has been a calling card of his. At 36, he was elder statesmen in St Vincent’s All-Ireland winning group of 2008 but his thin calves were mercilessly teased by younger team-mates.

When news broke in November 2022 that he would be returning to the Dublin set-up to assist Dessie Farrell, it followed weeks of speculation he might be succeeding his old team-mate. A self-made man with years of senior management acumen and once shortlisted to become GAA director general, the only thing he didn’t have was time.

“The hours involved, I just couldn’t do a manager’s job now,” he told the Irish Times last May. “Not a chance. I’m way past it. Way past it. It’s just moved on so much. The diet, the training, the wellbeing-monitoring. I’m sure I could learn what’s needed but it’s phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. There’s no end to it.”

So Gilroy became a consigliere to Farrell and an unofficial one at that, often leaving games soon after the final whistle. On championship matchdays, he carried out the duties of maor uisce. In the Sam Maguire Cup group game against Kildare in UPMC Nowlan Park, there was a bemusing moment when the game was briefly held up as he was chided by a linesman for wandering off from his designated half of the field.

Whether it is entirely true, the perception is that it was he who convinced Stephen Cluxton back into the fold last spring. Farrell has not been interested in dissuading that theory either but that’s how comfortable the pair are with one another.

Speaking on a webinar organised by his alma mater Trinity College last November, Gilroy admitted he couldn’t have filled the position for just anybody. “You have to do that with somebody you’re close with. Dessie was a playing colleague. Since we started playing U21 together, he has always remained a close friend and to be able to do that role, which he asked me to do, you’d have to have that chemistry with a guy.

“It was a pure pleasure doing it with him because we were so in sync with our view on the way things should be done. It was a completely different experience but extremely enjoyable.”

Gilroy’s addition to the Dublin set-up was in keeping with the trend of managers leaning on the experience of others. Jack O’Connor did it with Mike Quirke and Paddy Tally formerly of Laois and Down. Pádraic Joyce has with ex-Kildare manager Cian O’Neill. Kevin McStay’s appointed predecessor Stephen Rochford as his assistant manager in Mayo, the Crossmolina man having been Declan Bonner’s coach in Donegal.

John Cleary is able to call on the expertise of former Galway and Sligo manager Kevin Walsh and after having the counsel of Jim McGuinness last season, Down’s Conor Laverty is now helped by Derry’s old supremo Ciarán Meenagh.

But of all of them nobody was as overqualified as Gilroy. “’Tis very obvious that Dublin team have been gearing up for two weeks’ time – from well back,” said Kerry manager O’Connor before last year’s All-Ireland final. “They’ve brought back the cavalry; they’ve even brought back Pat Gilroy. They didn’t bring those fellas back for the craic.”

If he’s around for another season, O’Connor will get the message.