If there’s one thing nobody can accuse the new Dublin management of, it’s running a closed shop. With 10 minutes to go against Offaly last Saturday evening, Paul O’Dea came off the bench for Kevin Burke, making him the 29th player pressed into action by Niall Ó Ceallacháin in their opening three games. If that sounds like a lot, consider the faces not yet seen in blue during this campaign.
Danny Sutcliffe hasn’t played a minute yet. Neither have Ronan Hayes, Paddy Doyle or Sean Brennan – all of whom have been mainstays of the side in the past few seasons. AJ Murphy, Rian McBride and Chris O’Leary are all back in the panel after varying spells away and each of them is still to buckle up a matchday helmet.
Senior debuts are on the cards in the coming weeks for All-Ireland winning footballer Conor McHugh and former Limerick under-21 goalkeeper Eoghan McNamara, among others. Conor Nolan has been promoted from the reserve panel, Ryan Clarke has made the matchday 26 without being introduced. By the time the championship comes around, it’s not inconceivable that Dublin will have given game time to around 40 hurlers.
As always when faced with a blizzard of names and numbers like that, getting a clear sight of whether it’s a good or a bad thing is a tricky business. Forty hurlers is a lot – and if you were to count all the players they had a look at or asked in over the winter, you could add another dozen or so to that by all accounts. There’s usually some truth in the horse racing proverb that says if you think you have six Derby winners in the yard, you probably have none.
But Ó Ceallacháin came in with a mandate. Fresh off winning the All-Ireland with Na Fianna, he is of the Dublin club scene, by the Dublin club scene and for the Dublin club scene. When he was appointed, the Dublin county chairman Mick Seavers made a point of highlighting the new broom’s “detailed knowledge of the Dublin club hurling scene”.
He is the first native Dub to manage the county hurlers since Pat Gilroy’s year in charge and with a backroom made up of coaches from Kilmacud Crokes and Ballyboden, it’s clear they’ve felt a duty to cast the net as wide as possible. Last Saturday’s starting 15 against Offaly saw 10 different clubs represented.
“It’s all about adding depth to your panel,” says Ryan O’Dwyer. “Managers who are under a bit of pressure might be going all out to win the league but Niall has a different job in front of him. He has to get Dublin to a place where if they get a few injuries in the middle of the championship with the games coming thick and fast, at least he knows he has tested all his options.
“A lot of outside managers when they come in, they go looking for instant success. But you look at Niall Ó Ceallacháin and you can see he’s a manager who is in this for the long haul. He obviously looking at the established lads and using them but he’s definitely trying to fill as many younger lads and new faces in around that as he can. That’s what the league is for.”
Ó Ceallacháin does at least have the relative luxury of being able to jam with so many session musicians in the forgiving surrounds of Division 1B. He has given seven players their senior debuts in the past month – the water is more welcoming when you’re throwing them in against Antrim, Westmeath and Offaly than it is against Limerick, Cork and Kilkenny.
That said, the best before date of lower division hurling comes at you fast. Dublin, Waterford and Offaly are all in various development stages of their respective projects and 1B is no bad place for any of them right now. But only two of them will be in 1A this time next year – whoever is left behind will have lost momentum.
“There’s pros and cons to being in 1B,” says O’Dwyer. “For a manager in his first year, it’s probably a pro. Ó Ceallacháin came in knowing the lie of the land so he didn’t have that immediate pressure of trying to find out who is worth looking at. He knew straight away what was out there and he could start getting stuck into finding his best team.
“Being in 1B meant he could play everybody he wanted to play. There’s a big difference trying out young lads when you’re fighting for your life in Páirc Uí Chaoimh or the Gaelic Grounds. He didn’t have the pressure of having to try and dig in for every game and avoid a beating while bringing in new faces. He didn’t have to rush all the established lads back either.
“But at the same time, promotion is going to be very hard now unless they beat Waterford this weekend. It’s a kind of an all-or-nothing game. Offaly have done the hard bit by winning in Croke Park. Dublin need to go to Walsh Park and make up for it.”
All of which makes this weekend’s clash with Waterford such a huge one for Ó Ceallacháin and Dublin. Losing to Offaly on the back of a marginal last-minute free last Saturday was a knee-breaker for their promotion hopes. They were sloppy in how they allowed Offaly back into the game, coughing up a four-point lead in the closing stages. Anything short of a win this weekend probably means 1B hurling in 2026.
That’s a next-year problem, all the same. The way the fixtures have worked out this summer, Dublin actually have a pretty ideal championship start – back-to-back home games against Offaly and Wexford on the first two weekends. Easter is just seven weeks away now and Ó Ceallacháin’s group is taking shape.
This weekend will probably see the return of the last of the Na Fianna group after their All-Ireland exploits. Kevin and Donal Burke played last week, as did the Currie brothers and O’Dea. Murphy and McHugh may find it hard to grab a starting place at this stage – David Lucey has made a fine start at full-back and will be hard for McHugh to shift, while Murphy has Diarmuid Ó Dúlaing, John Hetherton, Cian O’Sullivan, Colin Currie and Ronan Hayes to fight with for a spot in the inside forward line.
If the Na Fianna strike forward has a selling point, however, his speed to the ball and low centre of gravity could count in his favour. If Dublin have a plethora of sweet strikers and hardy defenders, they’re a little short on pace in the forward line.
“They’ve no Dotsy O’Callaghan,” says O’Dwyer. “I know he’s in coaching with them but they’d love him to be 15 years younger, buzzing around the place. When the ground hardens in the summer and the ball is zipping around, I don’t know if they’ll have the pace inside to really compete. Brian Hayes might be the fastest, young David Purcell is quick but still very light. Dublin need someone to really step up and be different.”
They’re not unique in that.
