JUST OVER A year after he was dropped by Ger Cunningham, Johnny McCaffrey has rejoined the Dublin senior hurling panel.
New Dublin coach Anthony Cunningham confirmed yesterday that the former Sky Blues captain is back in training with Pat Gilroy’s squad ahead of the 2018 campaign.
McCaffrey was among several experienced players who didn’t see eye-to-eye with the former Cork goalkeeper during his tenure and he was axed from the panel in November 2016 along with Peter Kelly.
The Lucan Sarsfields clubman skippered Dublin to the Leinster hurling title in 2013 under Anthony Daly and just turned 30 in September.
Kelly, an All-Star in 2013 and still only 28-years-old, is sidelined at the moment through injury but is part of their plans for the coming season.
McCaffrey and Danny Sutcliffe – who didn’t play in 2016 or 2017 – are the highest profile names to resume their inter-county careers under Gilroy.
“Johnny McCaffrey is still playing club hurling, still involved with us,” says Cunningham.
“There are other guys. Peter Kelly has a long term injury. He will still be given time to (impress). He’s back doing some pre-conditioning work, not on the field yet. Any of the players there, we will look at everybody.
“The big challenge for anyone is to get on the panel. Obviously, there is going to be a pre-season panel and players trying out for the Walsh Cup. We’ll take that competition seriously.
“There are continuous matches. Everyone’s aim would be to try and get on a championship panel which would need to be sorted for the onslaught of games that is coming in May.”
Cunningham says they will pursue Schutte brothers Mark and Paul once Cuala’s All-Ireland club campaign is over, but he admits its unlikely their club mate Con O’Callaghan will go for a dual role next year.
“They’re involved with Cuala, you would hope to have Mark Schutte back, Paul, you know, they’re still….nobody is going to touch the work that they’re doing. They’ll be left on their own (with Cuala).
“Everyone will leave Con alone and he will concentrate with Mattie Kenny and all the Cuala boys to win an All-Ireland back-to-back. He’ll be playing hurling up to the end of March. That’s not too far away from a Leinster round.
“Every hurling person in the country would love to see Con O’Callaghan play Kilkenny and Wexford in Thurles or wherever. I’m no different. He is a special talent. Very humble young man with a great family background with his father Maurice. It would be a dream come true but, that’s for others to decide. We’ll see how it goes.
“Everybody would love to have everybody involved but that’s really for Pat and for the management of the hurling and the football side.
“The only point would be, it might be easier in the month of May to have a hurler and then maybe he plays football for the rest of the year but I’m not putting words in anyone’s mouth. It could be for part of a season but I couldn’t see it for a full season.”
The former Galway manager was enticed back into inter-county hurling by 2011 All-Ireland-winning football boss Gilroy, who was a left-field managerial appointment by the Dublin county board.
Cunningham and Gilroy had briefly worked together before and he says training sessions will be a “combined effort.”
“I had done a very small bit of work with Pat back in 2013 or 2014, a few small tips and maybe some sports psychology work that he was working on. I’d admired his achievements really and, in essence, his style really.
“He was out of management but he still holds a huge, huge interest and he’s massively interested in this project. I’m really, really taken back by the energy, enthusiasm and the backroom team that he has put together. They’re really driving to achieve and he’s a very, very impressive man.
“He has a lot of very good fellas there so we’ll all be contributing. Without a doubt, for me it’s huge to get to work with players again at that level and coaching. It’s where the enjoyment is, being on the pitch and doing the sessions and being involved a lot on that for sure.
“I’ve been there a few months now going to club games and seeing how the thing operates from afar.”
Gilroy was primarily known as a football man during the majority of his career, but Cunningham believes he has plenty to offer the small ball code.
Cunningham is one of the few managers who’s enjoyed success in both codes, having brought the Galway hurlers and Garrycastle footballers to All-Ireland finals in recent times.
“(Pat’s) record is that he’s had massive success as a player, he was in a very strong club and was very, very involved with the club and then his management pedigree – I mean there aren’t too many guys going around that have taken too many teams to an All-Ireland final and won.
“Pat was instrumental in changing a lot of the new thinking in Dublin and bringing in a new regime. He has the experience and that’s shining through already.
“I would say that anyone with football backgrounds would definitely be able to contribute at hurling level as well. Quite a lot of it now, if you are not going to be prepared to work if you lose a ball, how you set up defensively, there’s a huge overlap.
“If football guys can do it with soccer and Gaelic football guys can do it in hurling then I’m sure there will be some overlaps.”
He was ousted as manager of the Tribesmen as part of a player heave in the winter of 2015, and less than two years later they went on to lift the All-Ireland title. But Cunningham says there’s no lingering animosity towards his former players.
“You can’t hold grudges in life. That chapter is well and truly over.”
A new chapter is just beginning.
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