Cormac Costello eager for final involvement with Dublin

Costello has never started a league final in his lengthy Dublin career.

Wed, 27 Mar, 2024 - 07:40

John Fogarty

Perhaps a surprising statistic about Cormac Costello’s 12-year Dublin career – he hasn’t started a league final.

Making the panel for Sunday is his chief priority after returning to training following a calf strain but he would hardly say no to facing Derry from the off.

“Is this an itch to be scratched? Look, every game you want to play. It is a national competition, the Allianz League, it’s a domestic final, you want to play it, of course you do, so yeah hopefully I get available for selection and I get my first start, I suppose.

“I can’t speak for every league final but last year again I picked up a similar calf injury, after the Louth game I think it was, our last game, just put me out for the league final, but I was back then for the first round of the championship. It was just unfortunate the way it fell.”

As was his debut season of 2013 when injured ruled him out of the entire campaign.

“I had a disaster. I broke my foot. The night before we played Cork in the first league game in Croke Park on a Saturday night, the Thursday night in training I broke my ankle, so I was out for the whole league.

“I came back and I featured in the championship then. We played Westmeath in the first round of the championship, came on in that game and then I broke my collarbone. That year was just a write-off.”

The 29-year-old’s coping mechanism with injuries is stronger these days but being out of a Dublin attack firing on all cylinders is difficult as much as he maintains it’s “daunting” to be in the possession of a starting jersey too.

“It would be nice to play in the forward line in those two games. The lads seem to be moving very well. The last couple of games they’ve been really clinical and a lot of good attacking plays, which is great, but it’s a big one now on Sunday.

“Our principles have stayed the same for the last three years and we’re always trying to improve and build layers on it but I suppose it’s starting to click as was seen with the patterns of play in the last couple of games.

"There are more lads who have been knocking around the panel the last couple of years and they’re getting used to the systems of play while there are newer lads being bred into it too.

"They seem to be landing but at the end of the day it is still March and there’s still a big championship ahead.”

Seeing Con O’Callaghan dazzle once more comes as no surprise to Costello.

“I know the last couple of years he might say he’s not at his best but he still is. I think his bar is so high that anything less than shooting the score lights out and being man of the match isn’t acceptable or people think he didn’t perform well.

"But I think even the games that we might perceive he didn’t play well, you’d still see that he put in a good shift.”