Rain fell intermittently on Dessie Farrell and a clutch of his players as they waited outside their Santry hotel base on a minibus to take them, and the Sam Maguire Cup, to the children’s hospitals in Dublin.
Most of the players were surprisingly fresh faced for what used to be an annual pilgrimage for the team, though a few may have been glad of the splash of water. It was a long night. It was a long couple of years.
Farrell, as James McCarthy pointed out during his victory speech on Sunday afternoon, was typically the lightning rod for criticism throughout 2021 and 2022, what may in time come to be known as “the lean years”.
Farrell only lightly engaged with that discussion immediately after the win over Kerry, claiming that most of what was, and is, written and said about him is “all bull***t” anyway.
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The morning after the night before, he peddled a similar response, redirecting media towards the positives and the various turning points and forks in the road of a season that turned to gold.
The Dublin manager reserved his broadest grin for a yarn about a long night’s celebration in the Crowne Plaza Hotel and a short night’s slumber.
“There’s always that moment just as you wake up and you’re trying to figure out where you are, what happened yesterday, did you win or lose?” said a smiling Farrell. “When your thoughts gather, it was very satisfying to wake up and know we accomplished what we set out to.”
And what about the critics, wasn’t it one in the eye for those? Farrell didn’t fancy getting stuck back into that one but midfielder Brian Fenton happily took up the cudgels.
“He was like the front face of all our troubles, all our woes,” said Fenton of manager Farrell. “Like, go back to the Covid breach, the training breach, the bad performances, the relegation, people pushing for him to step aside. Look, you were always going to get that bit of ‘poisoned chalice’ talk, as in I’m sure you probably wrote about that when he came in after Jim [Gavin], so I’m so happy for Dessie. And I would probably know Dessie as personally as anyone, at this stage, from under-21s, all our dealings.
“And genuinely, I’m looking at him in the dressing-room, and you’re saying you do this for a couple of things, you do it for yourself, for your family, of course, but the likes of James McCarthy and Dessie now, those two are huge motivators for me.”
Farrell and his Na Fianna clubmate Eoin Murchan climbed off the bus together for the trip to Temple Street Hospital, just up the road from Croke Park. The Dubs and the cup journeyed on then to the Crumlin Children’s Hospital. Later, the entire squad rejoined for the homecoming celebrations at Smithfield Square. Was it their last stand, as a group?
Already, Dean Rock and McCarthy have hinted at retirement. For all of his sorcery, Stephen Cluxton can’t beat the clock either. Exiting stage left after holding his own against David Clifford could appeal to Mick Fitzsimons too.
“We didn’t really speak collectively about that,” said Farrell with a shrug. “There was an understanding that, for some, this could be the last dance, so to speak, and we didn’t try to leverage or use that because sometimes that can be inauthentic, and you’re trying to create a crutch or a hook that may not necessarily work to your advantage.”
Fenton couldn’t offer anything concrete regarding the future of their special group either.
“We’re all moving on in age,” said the seven-time All-Ireland winner. “Who knows, who knows. I don’t know.”
Fenton spoke with more certainty about the need to do the win justice by celebrating it fully. All the players felt the disappointment of the previous two years and none more so than the big midfielder.
“Jesus, it would haunt you, the simple mistakes that we made,” said the Raheny man of losing semi-finals to Mayo and Kerry in 2021 and 2022.
“Letting them come down the field and earn soft frees, and obviously Seán O’Shea. That stuff genuinely haunts you. Mayo the same, the extra-time two years ago, Rob Hennelly’s free.
“I genuinely get flashbacks of Diarmuid O’Connor winning that ball out on the endline. I don’t know if you remember it? I was kind of ushering the ball out and Diarmuid kept it in. Images like that haunt you. So to get back and to get up to the top of the hill this year, it’s extra sweet.”
With a fair wind, Fenton could yet end up as the Footballer of the Year. His final performance was understated but masterful. That too felt good to reflect on.
“Personally, my own performances over the last two years, it grinds at you a little bit,” he said. “Just gets in on you and you’re kind of questioning yourself a little bit. People say, ‘Ah but you’ve six medals’ or ‘You’ve this and that amount of All-Stars’ but, to be honest, you don’t give a filddlers about that really. I don’t know, there always seems to be someone trying to drag you down. It’s, ‘He’s not what he was’ or ‘They’re not what they were’, that kind of thing.
“As much as we try to keep it out, it filters into the squad. And genuinely for me, I know players get motivated in different ways, but for me, personally, I like to kind of prove people wrong a little bit as well.”
