Hard work, dedication and sacrifice: Declan Dalton's journey back to the Rebel red

Dropped from the panel in 2022. The end of Declan Dalton’s Cork road - at just 24 years of age. That could have been his story.

Sun, 21 Jul, 2024 - 10:00

Eoghan Cormican

Only 28 championship minutes in 2021. Dropped from the panel in 2022. The end of Declan Dalton’s Cork road - at just 24 years of age.

That could have been his story. That could have been his lot in red. Declan Dalton, though, has never been one to follow the path others have sought to lay for him.

He played in goals for his club, Fr O’Neill’s, up until U14. When he was called into the Imokilly set-up in 2015, it was his goalkeeping services they were after.

He wore the No.1 shirt for three years, including the 2017 county championship winning campaign.

But the same as his underage days with the club, Dalton had no desire to continue indefinitely between the sticks for the East Cork division. He saw his career as a forward.

And he knew exactly what had to be done to make that happen. Holding him back wasn't his hurling.

Ahead of Fr O’Neills' 2020 All-Ireland intermediate club final appearance, Dalton opened up on the bargain he made with himself a few years earlier to “get fit, lose weight, and push onto being an outfield player which I wanted to be the whole time, but couldn’t”.

“I had to work very hard to lose weight, get stronger, get fitter. I’m trying to catch up on everyone else who has it in their legs,” he added. “If I can keep building, keep pushing on, hopefully my career will pan out well.”

Cork's Declan Dalton lets a long-range shot fly against Limerick. Pic: Bryan Keane, Inpho

His omission from the Cork set-up in 2022 was not exactly his career panning out as he wanted. Undeterred, he drove the club to top-tier promotion that year. In their five-game run to Senior A glory, he tallied 1-50 (0-35 from placed balls).

The recall, under new manager Pat Ryan, wasn’t long arriving through the letter box. The recall wasn’t long being repaid.

In Cork’s second league outing of 2023, Dalton struck six from play in the victory over Galway at Salthill.

“He has got himself in fantastic shape,” Ryan said post-match. “Obviously he was left off the panel last year and he has a point to prove as well.”

Daniel Harrington is a clubmate of Dalton’s. He was also a Cork teammate of Dalton’s in the early months of this year, having been part of the panel during the Munster SHL.

Harrington has seen first-hand the level that is required to simply survive in the inter-county sphere. He’s also seen first-hand the work Dalton put in to revive his existence in red and now thrive.

“Straight away the levels went up in training when we had Deccie with us in 2022. You knew he had a point to prove in the club championship, and almost to prove some fellas wrong. He wasn't long getting his chance to come back in with Cork. He has built from there,” Harrington begins.

“The Munster U21 semi-final back in 2017 where he scored the penalty late on and got man of the match, all those things led him to believing he could be an outfield player.

“He always had the skills and ability, but it was the turn of pace and I suppose you could say he wasn't the slimmest lad. But he knew that himself. He knew that was always going to catch him.

"That was the main thing he had to change because he always had the hurling and the strike since we were small, it was just that bit of slimming up and getting a bit quicker.

“He always knew he had to improve on that. He'd have always been pretty vocal to us about it. But again, that all boils down to him wanting it and him wanting to change that. He definitely wanted that. He went hard in the gym. Went hard out doing the running side of it.”

A broken bone in his foot January gone necessitated surgery and sidelined him for over half the county’s league campaign.

One of six changes for the Round 2 visit of Clare in Munster, it represented only his third championship start since first seeing summer game-time five years earlier.

The now 26-year-old has slowly grown into the summer. Hit three from play during the preliminary quarter-final win over Offaly.

Across the first 41 minutes against Dublin, he notched three from play, notched three more from the dead-ball, collected three Cork restarts, intercepted a Dublin restart, and forced a second turnover elsewhere. There’d have been a late goal too but for Seán Brennan’s mid-air gymnastics.

Onto the second-half against Limerick and he threw over three boomers, including the lifting score after Patrick Collins saved from Hegarty and Coleman promptly picked him out unmarked on the Hogan Stand side.

That he is forever in position to unleash at the opposition posts from inside the Cork 65-metre line owes to the work-back-the-field brief he is diligently carrying out.

He does not care at spending more time in deeper roles than his half-forward colleagues Séamus Harnedy and Shane Barrett.

As former midfielder Tom Kenny said this week, Deccie understands exactly what is being asked of him.

Last word to Harrington.

“It could have went either way for him when he was dropped off in 2022. He could have said, 'fuck this, I am only going to play club', but he took it the other way.

"That is down to the effort he put in. Having been in with Cork for a few months, I saw the effort that goes in, and it is actually off the charts.

“Deccie has a busy work life and a small fella at home, he’s made unreal sacrifices, so I am delighted for him. Hopefully now on Sunday he can go out and do what he does best.”